Celestial Being Chronicles: Universal Disaster
by Christopher12284
Summary: The Celestial Being Warship Excalibur has been transported back in time to September 11, 2001. How will the presence of this superweapon alter the path of this, and countless other realities? Multiple pairings, mass-crossover.
1. Intervention

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 1**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato. This chapter depicts an alternitive version of the events that happened on September 11th 2001. I want to say that I mean no disrespect to anyone who lost friends, family or to those who lost their lives that day.

**Author's Note:** Before reading this fanfic, please read the following four fanfics; .net/s/5206070/1/Kira_and_Murrue_fanfic, .net/s/5233057/1/Kira_and_Murrue_fanfic_continuation, .net/s/5345526/1/The_power_to_change_the_past, and .net/s/5398282/1/Gundam_SEED_Eternity, it will make this fic easier to understand.

* * *

Kira Yamato groaned slightly as he slowly opened his eyes and looked around, and after studying his surroundings for a few short seconds, the amethyst-eyed man realized that he was in the Captain's Quarters on board the Excalibur.

One hour later, back on Earth, in New York City, chaos reigned as the roar of jet engines filled the sky. A moment later, an ear shattering explosion tore through the city streets and a massive fireball rose into the sky.

In an instant, people were screaming and shouting, people were dying and suffering and other people were trying to call their loved ones.

"I'm Dan Rather, reporting with some breaking news. The north tower of the World Trade Center has been hit by a commercial aircraft."

The bridge of the Excalibur fell into stunned silence as everyone stared in horror at the screen. The news had switched to a live video feed showing of the Twin Towers in New York City, with the north tower furiously burning.

Everything in the city came to a halt when a large humanoid machine with angel-style wings suddenly appeared in the sky. This machine was the newest mobile suit built by Celestial Being, the CB-X60D Divinity Gundam. Everyone stared in stunned silence as the Divinity Gundam pointed at the now burning tower with its left hand, and instantly the fire extinguished itself.

As soon as the fire had been snuffed out, Kira glanced at the digital clock within the cockpit, noticing that the local time was 9:01 AM.

"Time to change history." Kira sighed just as the second plane, a Boeing 767-222 approached, heading straight towards the south tower. Without any hesitation, Kira raised his beam rifle, aiming it at the oncoming airliner, while at the same time, forcibly opening a communications line to the aircraft.

"Attention, United Airlines Flight 175, change your course immediately, if you come any closer you will be fired upon. This is your only warning!" Kira commanded, the tone in his voice making it clear that he was completely serious. Much to Kira's annoyance, instead of adjusting its course, the airliner's engines roared to full power.

"Morons!" Kira roared before holstering his beam rifle, since he didn't want to kill innocent civilians. Unexpectedly, the airliner began to hover in place, and as it hovered in front of him, Kira utilized his more god-like powers, causing the doors leading into the cockpit to suddenly slam shut and lock, trapping the terrorists within the tiny room, he then shut down the aircraft's engines and extended the landing gear, before gently lowering the aircraft towards the streets below.

As he lowered the airliner towards the ground, Kira utilized his powers to take control of the civilians on the ground, although in their minds, the civilians were still acting upon their own free will, as they quickly dispersed, clearing a landing point for the now disabled airliner.

Twenty minutes later, the Destiny Gundam pulled alongside American Airlines Flight 77, the Gundam itself seeming to glare at the aircraft. In the cockpit of the Destiny Gundam, Hope Yamato scowled as she quickly pulled ahead of the Boeing 757-223, raised her beam rifle and fired two blasts, quickly destroying both engines.

"Well," Hope muttered to herself as the now disabled airliner screamed past, "This plane was destined to hit the Pentagon, so I don't see any problems with vaporizing it." Hope smirked slightly as she pulled her Gundam in behind the airliner, quickly matching her target's speed while freeing the twin buster rifle from the back of her machine.

"We're Gods and we're fighting for the sake of what's to come; to protect the future." Hope said as she aimed her rifle, glaring at the now decending airliner. "Once again we must take up arms and fight." Just as she began to pull the trigger, the Destiny's twin buster rifle was peirced by a pair of green beam blasts. Hope instantly dropped the weapon, watching as it exploded in midair.

"Being Gods and fighting for the future does not mean that we are allowed to kill innocent civilians, Hope Yamato." Kira growled through the open communications line as the Divinity Gundam charged towards the Destiny Gundam, the angelic machine dove out of the sun, the glare momentarily blindning the pilot of the Destiny Gundam. Without any hesitation, Kira reached out with his left hand and instantly the Destiny was bathed in the purplish cone of radiation energy from the Tranquility Directed Neutron Disabler mounted within the palm.

Much to Hope's shock; not only did the Destiny Gundam's nuclear reactor shut down, but its GN drives and warp core powered down as well. Denied its primary sources of power, the Destiny switched to its limited battery, losing its Mirror Coated Phase Shift armor, sensors and thruster control.

Kira let the Destiny Gundam drop away from him, but it was caught a few seconds later by the Strike Freedom Gundam. The amethyst-eyed man then turned his machine to face the disabled airliner, once more utilizing his god-like abilities, causing the doors leading into the cockpit to slam shut and lock, trapping the terrorists within the tiny room. Still utilizing his divine powers, Kira then extended the landing gear, before finally landing the aircraft on the highway below.

A few hours later, the massive form of the Warship Excalibur suddenly appeared on local airport radar screens. However, the huge ship vanished just as quickly as it had appeared, as it jumped into a completely diffrent universe and timeline.


	2. Arrival in Tokyo3

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 2**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

The year is 2015 AD, even now, battles rage throughout the world, but it is now against a diffrent enemy entirely.

Everyone in the Nerv control room, deep below the city of Tokyo-3 jumped when the sirens began to sound, however, none of the radar stations around the city had detected an Angel, instead, they had detected, what looked to Nerv control room personnel, to be a large dagger-shaped transport craft, everyone also noticed the distinctive Nerv logo, on the hull of the ship.

Gendo Ikari, the Supreme Commander of Nerv, did not want to take any chances, and immediately ordered the defensive perimeter to open fire on the strange ship, despite the Nerv logo on the ships' hull.

The crash of grinding metal suddenly rang through the Excalibur's massive docking bay as the main gates opened, and a pink Eternal-class support ship, which looked like no more than an upgraded version of the original Eternal from the First Bloody Valentine War, rose ponderously out of the docking bay and into the blackness.

Lacus Clyne smiled slightly as she sat on the bridge of the Eternal-class vessel, which had been given the name Purity.

Being an Eternal-class ship, the Purity was designed as a support ship, and was reletively lightly armed; with only two forward-firing heavy beam cannons, two dozen CIWS guns, and a battery of defensive missile launchers, in addition a powerful beam cannon was concealed within the nose of the ship and could be utilized as either a positron cannon, or if the need arose, a temporal inversion cannon. The Purity's primary weapons battery, however, was the pair of heavily armed METEOR units.

As the Purity moved away from the Excalibur, its phase cloak activated and the ship faded into invisibility.

The next ship to leave the Excalibur's docking bay was a Minerva-class battleship, which like the Purity, appeared to be nothing more than an upgraded version of the original design. This vessel was under the command of Cagalli Yula Athha. The ship had been given the name of Gladys, named after the captian of the original Minerva-class battleship from the Second Bloody Valentine War.

Being a Minerva-class battleship, the Gladys was heavily armed. Its weaponry consisted of a pair of dual beam cannons, a triple barrel cannon, more than a dozen CIWS guns, eight missile and torpedo launchers, a dozen anti-beam depth charge launchers and lastly a powerful beam cannon, which like the one concealed within the nose of the Purity, could be used as either a positron cannon or a temporal inversion cannon.

A moment later, a huge purple, green and black machine, known as Evangelion Unit 01, rose out of the ground on the vertical launch catapult. While Evangelion Unit 01 was about the same size as a Destroy Gundam, it lacked any weapons, ranged or otherwise, which could effectively damage the Gundams built by Celestial Being.

As the Excalibur, which was now flanked by both the Purity and the Gladys, approached Tokyo-3, the city's defense systems immediately began to fire. The defensive weapons were swiftly silenced, however, as the Gladys and the Purity returned fire, destroying the weapon emplacements with a single volley of beam blasts. Gendo Ikari was not done, he quickly opened a communications line to the three approaching ships.

"To the unidentified ships, we demand you identification!" He commanded with an authoritarian voice.

"This is the Excalibur! Why the hell should we identify ourselves, Ikari?" Came a sharp female reply.

"By the power invested in me by the United Nations!" Was his reply, with a slight smirk on his face.

"Who?" Came the response, along with sounds of giggling and the failure to hold back a laugh. Now he was mad! He had just been mocked on an open communication frequency. He waited a couple seconds and then fired back his reply.

"The United Nations Military Command and the United Nations General Assembly. The current leadership during this time of crisis, but if you don't know them, then who do you serve?" Commander Ikari asked plainly, but with a smirk.

Soon a picture came up on the main screen in the Nerv command center and everyone in the Nerv command center did a double take, when a brown-haired woman appeared on the screen.

"Oh! That United Nations, and as to whom we serve, that's easy, we serve God himself and we are much more powerful then you could ever hope to become." The captain stated quite plainly.

Two of the crewmembers on the Excalibur's bridge, who were sitting right behind Murrue as well as a few others, who were off camera, broke out laughing. They couldn't help themselves.

The look on the Nerv command personnel was priceless. Then Nerv's own radio began to produce muffled giggling that broke out into full laughter. The laughter belonged to Nerv's own command personnel, as well as the U.N. soldiers.

This was not Commander Ikari's day.

Within the cockpit of the CB-X60D Divinity Gundam, Kira Yamato began to laugh as his machine streaked out of the Excalibur's launch bay. An instant later, the Gundam's plasma cannons swung forward from behind the machine's shoulders, while at the same time, the hip-mounted rail guns also clicked into their firing position.

A fraction of a second later, there was a blinding flash of light, accompanied by a deafening boom as the Divinity Gundam fired its plasma cannons, rail cannons and twin buster rifle in the same instant.

The massive EMP which was caused by the Divinity Gundam's weapons was powerful enough to plunge the entire city of Tokyo-3, and even Nerv headquarters, below the Geofront, into total darkness.

A few short seconds later, Kira Yamato appeared in the command center, his entire body glowing with a pure white light, illuminating the entire room.

"Gendo Ikari." Kira growled. "You need to move on, stop fighting to change things that are in the past! No matter what you do, you can't bring anyone back!" The amethyst-eyed man snarled, his body now beginning to radiate with a blood red light. "Just because you lost your wife, you intend to initate Third Impact and destroy the future. Is that really what you desire; the extermination of humnity?" Before Gendo could answer, Kira vanished with a flash of bright white light.

A few seconds later, the Purity and Gladys once again landed in the Excalibur's docking bay, and finally the massive ship vanished underneath the shroud of it's Phase Cloak.


	3. Evangelion Unit 03

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 3**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

Everyone in the Nerv command center was on edge. The Excalibur had finally dropped the veil of its Phase Cloak, one week after it's initial appearance.

As soon as the massive dagger-shaped ship had reappeared, it opened fire on, and succeded in heavily damaging the approaching flying wing aircraft, which was in fact an Evangelion transport aircraft, which had been laiden with Evangelion Unit 03.

Despite taking heavy damage to both of its outboard starboard-side engines, the transport aircraft had landed safely with its cargo, and Evangelion Unit 03 was qickly moved to the test facility in Matsushiro, although it was done so under extremely heavy gaurd.

Three days later, the bridge of the Excalibur was quiet, the only thing which prevented the silence from being complete was the nearly inaudible, yet steady hum of the ship's multiple reactors.

"I'm going to go take Divinity out for a for a spin." Kira mused as he stood up and walked towards the door, not bothering to wait for a reply from the others. "If anyone asks for me, I'll have the comm. link open."

As the Divinity Gundam streaked out of the Excalibur's centerline launch bay, Kira was completely unaware that Evangelion Unit 03 would begin activation tests within the next hour, nearly an entire week before the tests had been originally been scheduled to begin.

"I can't...can't do it...can't fight...my friend...my friend is in there...I WON'T HURT HIM!" Shinji Ikari choked out from within the cockpit of Evangelion Unit 01, despite the pain from his neck, which was slowly being crushed by the now infected Evangelion Unit 03.

"Then you'll die." Gendo retorted.

"THAT'S BETTER THAN KILLING ANOTHER HUMAN BEING!"

"Dammit! Cut the synch between Unit 01 and the pilot."

"Sir?" Maya inquired.

"Switch the synch circuit to the Dummy System.

"Commander – I told you the Dummy System wasn't finished yet – it's only in testing phases!" Ritsuko retorted.

"It's still better than our current pilot – DO IT!"

Misato fell silent, she was unsure as to the capabilities of the Dummy Plug System, but hearing Ritsuko talk about it not passing initial testing phases made her very uneasy, nonetheless, Commander Ikari had taken control of the operation – there was nothing more Misato could do.

The interior of the Eva suddenly went dark – Shinji's link with Unit 01 had been severed.

"W-What?" Shinji was startled as the interior of the plug started to glow a dimly glowing, blood-red light, as something was activated behind his pilot seat. "What the hell are you doing, Father!"

"We have a reception signal, control switch over complete. Nervous system is now linked with the Dummy System. Emotive perception at 67.2, unable to monitor."

"It'll do, Release the system – Commence Attack!" Commander Ikari ordered.

After the attack orders were inputted into the system, Eva 01 reactivated. Surprisingly it seemed stronger than ever, easily breaking the strangling choke-hold that was placed on it by Bardiel. Then, turning the tables on the infected Eva, Unit 01 clenched both hands tightly on Eva 03's neck. Eva 01 was now crushing the neck of Eva 03.

_'WH-What's going on? I didn't do anything! Why is the Eva moving?'_ Shnji thought as he watched the terrifying scene unfold.

"STOP IT! Damn it! Why won't the unit respond? What did you do? Father! Tell me!"

"A useless pilot should just sit and be quiet." Commander Ikari retorted coldly.

After squeezing Unit 03's neck tighter and tighter, finally, there was a sickening snapping sound as Unit 03's neck was crushed. Unit 03's arms fell limp to its side. Unit 01 was not going to stop – it was not in its program to stop until the target was completely obliterated, even though the threat was gone.

Eva Unit 01 lifted Eva Unit 03 in the air and slammed it roughly down to the ground, then; Eva 01 reared its left arm back – to strike a crushing blow to Eva 03's head, but at was not to be, as the Divinity Gundam suddenly descended from the sky, igniting the beam saber on its left wrist and effortlessly cleaving off Unit 01's left arm. However, the weapon had been ignited for only a fraction of a second, and to everyone else, it appeared as though Eva Unit 01's arm had merely fallen off.

"What the hell are you doing? Do you intend on destroying Eva Unit 03!" Kira shouted, "Does Eva Unit 03 look like a threat now? Commander Ikari, Eva Unit 03 has obviously ceased to function! Don't be a faggot; turn off the Dummy Plug System!" Kira roared, while freeing both of his twin buster rifles from his back, aiming one of the rifles at Eva Unit 01, and the other at Eva Unit 00. "Or I'll do it myself!"

"EAT THIS!" Asuka Langley Soryu yelled from within Evangelion Unit 02, as her crimson Evangelion Unit hefted it's bazooka, aiming for the head of the Divinity Gundam.

Kira looked up, merely watching as the crimson Evangelion Unit fired at him. The 300mm shell slammed into the head of the Divinity Gundam, exploding into a fireball upon impact.

"I DID IT!" Asuka exclaimed as the Gundam stood in front of her, smoke obscuring its head. As the smoke cleared Asuka nodded in satisfaction, fully expecting her opponent to be headless.

"You smudged my armor." Kira scowled over an open comm. line, as the smoke cleared to reveal that the Divinity Gundam was undamaged, aside from a black blotch where the rocket had detonated.

"Bad move, little girl." Kira growled, as he replaced both buster rifles on his machine's back, before then drawing the Divinity's gravity hammer with his now free left hand.

Kira grinned as he swung the gravity hammer in a slight downward arch, allowing the weapon to gain as much momentum as possible before it slammed into the chest of the blood red Evangelion Unit. The force of the gravity hammer's impact sent the crimson Eva flying backwards, slamming into a nearby hillside.


	4. Dogfight above Tokyo3

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 4**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

Now that the crimson Evangelion Unit was momentarily out of the fight, Kira once again holstered the gravity hammer on the Divinity Gundam's back. The amethyst-eyed man then ejected the Gundam's right hand, which exploded upon hitting the ground, and allowed a new weapon to slide out of his machine's forearm, one which had been only recently installed; a razor-sharp, three bladed claw.

Only a few seconds after the Gundam's right hand had been ejected, it exploded, this was a safety measure to ensure that hostile forces would be unable to aquire any parts of the Gundam which had been ejected during battle.

"This guy, who is he?" Shinji muttered as the Divinity Gundam turned to face his purple Evangelion Unit, which had once more risen to it's feet. Kira smirked ever so slightly as the three-bladed claw that now took the place of his machine's right hand, began to rapidly spin.

"Who am I?" Kira echoed, as his vestige appeared within a small communications screen, his lips pulled back, revealing his pure whute teeth, with pronounced canines, upper and lower.

"To you, I am the devil himself, Shinji Ikari." Kira snarled as he ignited the beam sabers mounted in his machine's wrists.

Meanwhile, a squadron of more than 500 machines had been launched from the Excalibur's hanger bays. Leading the massive air wing was Mu La Flaga's orange-and-white colored F-22 Raptor, and following close behind were hundreds of other aircraft and mobile suits.

Mu, along with dozens of other ace pilots from both ZAFT and the Earth Alliance, had been resurrected, in addition, the members of the original private armed orginization Celestial Being, had also been brought back to life.

Among the resurrected ZAFT ace pilots were; Shiho Hahnenfuss, Andrew Waltfeld, Deakra Elsman, Nicol Amalfi, and against the advice of Kira's lovers, Rau Le Creuset and Rey Za Burrel.

Much against the advise and will of his lovers, Kira had also resurrected both Flay Allster and Natarle Badgiruel, he had also given them piloting skills on the level of ace pilots.

At the request of fellow pilot Shinn Asuka, Kira had also resurrected Shinn's sister; Mayu Asuka, and in addition to giving her piloting skills on the level of an ace pilot. Kira had also made Mayu older, or more specifically he had increased the girl's age from 12 years old to 18 years old.

"Time on target; 5 minutes." Mu reported from the cockpit of his F-22 Raptor.

As the 500 machines screamed away from the Excalibur, they quickly reformed from the seemingly chaotic cloud of gleaming metal, into 100 seperate fighter wings. Each of the fighter wings consisted of five machines, with each of the five-ship fighter wings accompinied by a pair of mobile suits. After refroming, the 100 fighter wings split up, each individual fighter wing heading for a seperate target.

As Mu La Flaga's flight, which had been given the name: Mobius Squadron, approached the fortress city of Tokyo-3, five glints appeared in his canopy. A chill surged up the ace's spine, but then it decided to turn around and go back down, making him shudder. Something bad was going to happen on this mission, and it probably had something to do with these five foes.

"I've got a bad feeling about this," Mayu Asuka said worriedly from the cockpit of her custom pink-and-red colored F-22 Raptor.

"Me too," Mu replied as he switched over to a communications channel which had just been intercepted by the Excalibur.

What he heard chilled his body to the core.

"Yellow Squadron, we have clearance to engage. Splash all hostile aircraft."

"Roger, initiating attack on all hostile aircraft."

Mu couldn't believe it. The infamous Yellow Squadron, a squadron of nearly unbeatable ace pilots, all of whom flew Sukhoi Su-37 Terminators, which he had only ever read about, was here.

"Oh no," Mu muttered, before then switching back over to his own communications frequency. "Mobius Squadron, be careful." He decided to tell the Yellows who they were dealing with. "Engage as a formation, no single-ship attacks."

"Did you hear that!" One of the Yellows shouted.

"Sure did."

"So then that lead Raptor's the…"

"It sure seems that way."

"Right! Engage him!"

The five Terminators ahead split in an elegant manner, though Mobius had already dissolved into its elements and was even then setting up for a strike.

Mayu wanted to scream and cry in frustration. Her opponent in the Terminator had jinked for the fifth time before snapping into a Cobra and forcing an overshoot. By the time Mayu had reversed, another Terminator had gotten on her tail and was hounding her, her radar warning bleeping at her with tracers shooting past her aircraft every now and again as the other fighter got her in his sights.

"Damn!" She cursed as another attempt to throw off the enemy fighter failed. It was clear that the enemy pilot was well trained and knew what he was doing, staying with her even as Mayu slowly used up every trick in the book.

Suddenly, one of the Yellows pulled ahead of Mayu's Raptor, before performing a half loop and pointing his nose at the pink-and-red F-22. A small speck dropped off the Terminator's right wing and headed right at her as the enemy pilot quickly peeled away.

The world seemed to slow down for Mayu as she rolled level, lit her burners and screamed headlong at the missile. Something inside her told her that now was the time and she pulled up hard, rolled onto her back, three bright flares dropping from her Raptor's belly, then dropped in behind the missile, which wasn't able to compensate for the sudden maneuver and the appearance of so many targets. To everyone's surprise, the missile didn't continue forward after being drawn off course by the flares, instead it detonated, the explosion spewing a cloud of shrapnel into the air, some of which hit the left engine of the pink-and-red Raptor.

"I'm hit!" Mayu growled as her left engine began to cough out a thin black trail of smoke.

Mu La Flaga was just about to turn towards another fighter when flares started to go off nearby, signaling for the deployed fighters to return.

"Why are they retreating, they had us on the ropes." Meyrin Hawke asked over the radio in a shocked voice as she brought her grey-and-red colored F-22 Raptor into formation with Mu La Flaga's own, orange-and-white colored F-22 Raptor, whle Mayu Asuka brought her pink-and-red colored F-22 Raptor into formation.

"I don't know, but I got a bad feeling about this…" Mu replied as the rest of the machines rejoined the formation before turning back towads the Excalibur.


	5. Mayu Asuka

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 5**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

Kira stood in the Excalibur's massive hanger deck, silently watching as the many new fighter jets where taxied into their respective bays.

Kira looked over to one particular plane, a pink-and-red colored F-22 Raptor, which was leaving a thick trail of black smoke in its wake, and saw the pilot stand up in the cockpit before then climbing down the ladder. He could tell the pilot was female. Kira silently watched as she removed her helmet and shook her head from side to side, letting her brunette hair fall to her waist, before finally inspecting the damage that had been done to her aircraft.

It was then that Kira knew who she was; Mayu Asuka.

Mayu sighed as she removed her flight gloves and stuffed them into her helmet, she then turned away from her Raptor, walked towards Kira and passed right by him as though she hadn't even noticed that he was standing there. Kira smirked as he watched her walk away, taking note of how her ass moved in her black fight suit with each step she took.

"Hey, Yamato!" Said an all to familiar voice. Kira turned to find Shinn Asuka, Mayu's older, over protective brother.

"I saw that!" Shinn said as he stood in front of Kira.

"Why, what ever do you mean, Shinn?" Kira said feigning innocence. Shinn just scowled as he grabbed Kira by the collar.

"You listen and listen good, Kira! Stay away from my sister! You already have five girls in your little harem! I bet you think about sex more than finishing this war!" Shinn said in a stern voice.

"You shouldn't listen to rumors, Shinn." Kira replied as he looked at the other Gundam pilot, a playful grin on his face.

"I'm serious, Kira! Stay the hell away from her!" With that Shinn released Kira from his death grip and walked after Mayu.

A few hours later, a loud, metallic ringing echoed through the massive hanger bay as the Divinity Gundam's replacement right hand was attached to the machine's forearm, once again concealing the three-bladed claw within the forearm of his Gundam.

To the left of the powered down Divinity Gundam were thirty mobile suit cubicles, the first five cubicles held Dagger Ls. Ten other cubicles held GuAIZ mobile suits and the final fifteen cubicles held various Gundams; Akatsuki, Justice, Infinite Justice, Cherudim, Arios, Seravee, Exia, 0-Gundam, 00-Raiser, GN Archer, a pair of Destiny Gundams and the Wing Gundam Zero.

Across the hanger, the Akatsuki's CIWS compartment swung shut, and Cagalli finally let go of the crane controls, heaving a sigh and running a hand through her hair. "I wonder what we're going to do after this conflict is resolved."

Meanwhile, a few decks below the hanger bay, on the Excalibur's spa deck, Mayu Asuka's train of thought was broken as the sliding door opened with a hiss, followed by soft footsteps. Mayu's violet eyes shot open and she quickly moved her hand from between her legs as she turned around to meet the amethyst eyes of Hope Yamato, and when Mayu looked into Hope's eyes, the clone of her secret crush smiled knowingly.

Much to Mayu's relief, Hope hadn't noticed that she had been playing with herself only seconds earlier. Hope simply smiled as she carefully lowered herself into the hot water, her ankle-length hair quickly soaking up the water before slowly sinking below the surface. Mayu instantly blushed and looked down at the water, although she could not help but spare the occasional glance. Compared to Mayu, Hope was perfect, and they both knew it.

"I don't stand a chance." Mayu finally said, unintentionally speaking her thoughts after six agonizing minutes of silence.

Hope blinked, confusion obvious in her words. "What do you mean, Mayu?"

"You and I both know that I'm not good enough for Kira." Mayu whimpered.

"What makes you say that?" Hope asked.

"Oh, come on, I mean look at me!" Mayu answered, still fighting back her tears. "Compared to you I'm nothing. You have everything going for you. Perfect skin, long slender legs, an adoring face and your a C-cup to boot." Mayu sniffled as her head drooped, tears now sliding down her cheeks before falling freely into the water.

"You know Mayu, I didn't grow up to look like this, I was made like this." Hope said as she looked at the younger girl.

"What do you mean?" Mayu asked, clearly confused.

"I was genetically engineered using Kira's DNA as a base. In short; I'm a female clone of him." Hope answered, before moving to sit beside the younger woman.

"Wh-what?" Mayu asked, not sure that she had heard Hope correctly.

"I'm a female clone of Kira." Hope repeated.

"But isn't that incest?" Mayu asked after a few seconds of silence.

"You can't help who you fall in love with, Mayu, it just happens." Hope answered. "I fell in love with Kira, with my clone and I'm not ashamed to admit it." She smiled slightly before continuing. "We love each other. Of course we're consenting adults, and that's the most important thing. We're not perverts. What we have is the most beautiful thing in the world." Hope paused for a moment before adding. "It's the same way with Cagalli, she is Kira's sister, and just like me, she is not ashamed to admit that she is in a relationship with him."

Mayu merely nodded, she already knew that Kira Yamato was in a complex relationship, or more accurately; a harem, with Cagalli, Hope, Lacus and Murrue, but at the same time, she still wanted to be part of that privliged group since she had a crush on Kira.

"So, you have a crush on Kira?" Hope smiled a moment later.

Mayu's eyes widened and her jaw dropped as she asked. "H-how did you know?"

"I can read your mind." Hope answered. "Kira, Cagalli, Lacus and Murrue also have the ability to read minds, but we very rarely utilize it." The amethyst-eyed beauty continued as she straddled Mayu, while at the same time, binding the ankles and wrists of the younger woman with her beautiful ankle-length hair.


	6. Mayu's Decision

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 6**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

Mayu stared, wide-eyed at Hope. She couldn't understand how Hope was able to read her mind, much less how she also seemed to be able to use her hair as though it were a limb, and was able to use it to restrain her.

Mayu was shy, almost timid, not sure of herself when it came to asking for what she wanted.

Hope smiled as she got comfortable sitting on Mayu's lap, finally she leaned towards her ear and whispered, "This is just the tip of the iceberg, Mayu. If you intend to join our harem, you will need to adopt some interesting fantasies and fetishes."

Hope could feel Mayu's arousal pulsating off of her body. Mayu's heightening arousal was also helping to push Hope's arousal higher.

Mayu allowed her silken thighs to drift open slightly, then ever so slightly more, to feel the palpable play of the warm water on her shaven lips. Mayu looked up into Hope's eyes again, feeling her own eyes and her pussy flush with moisture.

"It's only fair to warn you," Hope said, "that we have some rather extreme fantasies and fetishes, so if you want to join us, you will have to understand, accept, and be willing to perform them. Don't worry, though – if you stick that part out the actual sex will be gentle and sensuous. I will now give you a few minutes to think about it."

Hope smirked as she slowly moved away from Mayu's still restrained form, before finally diving under the surface of the water, but did not go far. She hated this part; the suspense before a potentially new addition to the harem made her final decision. But her own sense of honesty and justice demanded that she give the young woman both a fully informed and unforced choice, and the "space" to make it. She gave Mayu about five minutes, and then resurfaced. Hope could tell immediately, without having to read the other woman's mind, what the answer was, and her knees grew weak with excitement.

"You have decided?" Hope asked after wiping the water from her eyes, and much to her delight, Mayu nodded.

"Very well. Let the games begin!" Hope grinned as she began to play with herself, the beautiful woman moaned softly as she teased Mayu for a full minute, slowly dipping a finger into her hole, before then rubbing the oozing cum up and down her sensitive inner lips. She then moved up to her clit, and gave it a quick massage.

Throughout this lewd display Hope had never taken her eyes from Mayu, enjoying the mixture of embarrassment and excitement the young woman felt. While she was smearing pussy juice around her nether lips, Hope slipped her tongue out and licked the lips of her mouth, wetting them as part of the display. At the end of her brief clit massage Hope brought her pussy-juice covered fingers up to her mouth and licked them clean.

Mayu's own arousal was now reaching its peak as she watched the display unfolding in front of her. Once Hope had finished cleaning her fingers she could see that Mayu was just as aroused as she was. Hope smiled as she reached out and placed her hands on the young girl's cheeks. Mayu was awestruck as she peered into Hope's amethyst orbs.

_'She really is just like Kira. But at the same time so beautiful.'_ Mayu thought.

"Tell me something Mayu, did watching me masturbate excite you?" Hope asked, breaking the nearly five minutes of silence.

Mayu blushed deep crimson as she averted her violet eyes from Hope's gaze. Hope smirked as she could tell that she had just hit the proverbial nail on the head. Hope slid her hands down from Mayu's cheeks to her shoulders as she whispered into the younger woman's ear. "I guess that's a yes. Could it be that you're bisexual?"

"Miss Hope!" Mayu shouted as she dunked her head under the water out of embarrassment.

Hope waited patiently for Mayu to resurface. Seeing as how Mayu was mortal, Hope knew that she wouldn't stay down there for long. After about thirty seconds Mayu sprang back up and gasped as she took in a much needed breath of air.

"Mayu, it's nothing to be embarrassed about. All the other girls, myself included, are the same way." Hope reassured her.

Mayu looked up at Hope once more, she was amazed at the fact that Hope, as well as Kira's other lovers where also bi. Before Hope could say any more she noticed that Mayu was looking at her breasts, she then looked back at her own and her shoulders sank.

"Even if you say that I can join you girls." Mayu said. "How do we know that Kira will even like my body."

Hope could tell the young coordinator girl was still unsure of herself. "Do you not like your size?" Hope asked.

"They're too small, all I got was a middle B-cup and you have those large C-cups."

Hope merely smiled as she asked. "Mayu, would you like me to fix that?"

Mayu looked up at Hope, shock evident on her face. "What did you say?"

"I'm saying that I can fix your issue concerning your breast size." Hope said as she got off Mayu's lap and sat across from her. Mayu shifted slightly as she ran the idea through her head.

"Thanks for the offer Miss Hope, but I don't really want to get implants." She finally answered.

"I didn't mean implants." She explained, "and you can just call me Hope."

"Okay Miss-I mean Hope, then what to you mean?" Mayu asked.

Although, before Hope answered she decided to make things a little bit more comfortable, so she turned the spa jets on.

"Come sit on my lap." Hope sweetly said as she began to relax in the bubbles of the spa jets. Mayu blushed as she stood up and waded through the warm waist-high water.

After a quick moment of hesitation Mayu sat down in Hope's lap. Hope pulled Mayu closer to her to the point where Mayu's back was lightly pressing up against Hope's breasts. Hope could sense that Mayu had stiffened up once her back contacted her chest.

"It's alright, Mayu just relax." Hope whispered into Mayu's ear. Mayu relaxed as Hope brought her hands up out of the water and gently grasped Mayu's breasts. Mayu gasped in surprise but relaxed again when Hope started a gentle massage.

"Mmm, that feels good." Mayu breathed as she felt every muscle in her body relax to a level she didn't know existed. It was then that Hope began to use some of her abilities to carefully increase the size of Mayu's breasts. She had to be extra careful, because if she grew them too fast, she would hurt the young girl. Mayu could feel a slight tingle as Hope worked on her, she felt so good that her eyes slowly closed and a light moan slipped past her lips.

Hope worked her wonders for another five minutes on Mayu's enhancement before she finished and spoke up. "Okay, Mayu, you can stand up and open your eyes."

Mayu nodded as she stood up, taking in a deep breath as she opened her eyes and looked down at herself. What she saw amazed her. Hope had taken her from a middle-B cup to a large C-cup, the exact same size as Hope's own. Mayu just stared in awe at her new chest she couldn't help but bring her hands up and feel them. They were much softer then when she was smaller. Hope just continued to sit there, smiling happily as she watched Mayu check herself.

"So..." Hope started as she stood up. "I take it you like them?" All of a sudden Mayu reached over and pulled Hope into a bone-crunching hug.

"Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, Hope!" Hope just smiled and returned the younger girl's hug, but it was at that moment that Hope felt something squirm in her lower abdomen.

"Mayu, I have an idea." Hope suggested. "Would you like to come down to our private section of the ship?" Mayu looked at Hope, simply nodding in response, and Hope smiled as she said. "Shall we get out then?"

Mayu had heard rumors that there was a section of the Excalibur that was off limits to all but Kira and his many lovers, and now she was going to see it for herself.

Once both women had gotten out of the spa and had dried themselves, Hope had begun pulling on her uniform when Mayu spoke up. "Uh, Hope? I seem to have a slight problem."

Hope turned to find that because of Mayu's increased breast size, her normal bra no longer fit. Hope thought for a second before removing her uniform shirt.

"Here, you can use mine for now." Hope said as she removed her bra and offered it to Mayu. Mayu smiled as she accepted the bra and put it on. After she and Hope were fully clothed, Lacus walked in.

"Evening, ma'am." Mayu said politely. Lacus nodded and walked over to the cubby holes where she deposited her shoes before beginning to remove her clothes.

"Come on, Mayu just follow me." Hope said as she started to leave.

_'Where are you taking her, Hope?'_ Lacus asked telepathically, so that only she and Hope could hear.

_'Below, she wants to join us.'_ Hope answered, also utilizing telepathy.

_'I see, well have fun.'_ Lacus said, once again utilizing her telepathy.

With that Hope and Mayu left the spa area and boarded the elevator where Hope entered a code allowing the elevator to head down to their private section of the ship.


	7. Mayu's Initiation

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 7**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

**Warning:** This chapter contains an extreme lemon, and is not suitable for anyone under the age of 18.

* * *

The two women rode the elevator in silence as it descended. Finally the elevator stopped, only five floors from the keel of the ship. Hope smiled as she took Mayu's hand and led her into a narrow hallway lit with red lights, at the end of the hallway was a large high-security vault-type door and above the door was a lighted sign with the words "Inner Sanctum" written on it.

Before opening the door, Hope turned to Mayu and spoke. "Mayu before we go any further, I want to say two things. First; are you sure you're up for this? Because things can sometimes get fairly extreme with Kira and the other girls." Mayu thought for a moment and nodded. "Secondly, once you pass through this door you are not to talk to anyone about what happens down here, including your brother. The only ones that you may talk about it with are; myself, Kira, Cagalli, Lacus and Murrue."

Mayu smiled and saluted. "My lips are sealed."

Hope grinned as she placed her hand on the handprint scanner while also allowing the retinal scanner to verify her identity. After a few seconds, the huge door opened revealing a small room akin to what one would see at a Japanese public bath house. At the other end of the small room was another set of large doors, although obviously not as sturdy as the main vault-style door they had just passed through.

Once the two women walked in, the main door closed behind them, sealing them inside with a dull 'Clank' of its locks. Hope began to undress without so much as a second thought, while Mayu simply stared at her in silence. Once she was completely naked, Hope turned to face the younger woman, waiting for her to strip herself of her own clothing.

"Come on, Mayu take off your clothes. Unless both of us are completely naked, we won't be able to go through this door." Hope calmly said, as she patiently waited for the younger woman to strip herself of her clothing. Finally, after nearly ten seconds, Mayu hesitantly undressed, once more revealing her beautiful body to Hope. Only after Mayu had finished undressing did the inner doors finally open. revealing the first of many different rooms, which only Kira and his lovers ever had access to.

This first room was equipped with a full suite of state-of-the-art audio-visual equipment, including a massive high definition plasma TV screen. In front of this was a comfortable fabric covered couch, naturally the material had been selected for the quality of being comfortable against unclothed flesh.

That detail was just one of the many features that Kira had secretly included inside the Inner Sanctum when he rebuilt the Excalibur. The Inner Sanctum was designed specifically to facilitate the unique sexual lifestyles of himself and his lovers. For example, the five lowest levels of the ship were all but isolated from the rest. The goal was to create an isolated fantasy setting in which none of the sights and sounds of the outside world could intrude.

Another design feature was that these isolated lower levels were in effect a self-contained dwelling unit all by themselves. In addition to the office, aquarium, botanical gardens, bathroom suite, sauna, dungeon, salon, dojo hall, holodeck, entertainment room, two swimming pools, and the specially equipped bedroom adjoining the bathroom suite, there was a full-featured kitchen and dining area. The five levels had their own climate controls that kept the rooms toasty warm and dry, especially important given that clothing wasn't just optional during these trysts, it was generally forbidden!

Hope let the moment linger, drinking in the sight of the young Mayu Asuka as she stood in front of her, fully naked. Hope savored the slight embarrassment and shame of the nubile adolescent female whom had exposed her womanly charms to her lustful gaze.

After a long moment, Hope smiled as she once again took Mayu's hand and finally led her into the Inner Sanctum. After leading Mayu to a nearby shower stall, Hope gave a little clap and exclaimed, "Now, into the shower with you." She stood and reached into the stall, turning on the water and adjusting the complicated temperature control for the girl.

"How's that?" she asked. Mayu carefully reached her hand into the chamber, acutely aware of her and Hope's mutual nakedness. She felt the water, nodded, then stepped in as Hope moved to sit on the nearby couch.

After sitting down, Hope directed her attention back to Mayu for a moment. "You definitely seem to be getting into the spirit of things here," she said, smiling warmly as she did so.

Mayu nervously returned the smile as she continued to shower. Indeed, she HAD enjoyed watching the slightly older woman as she pleased herself. She WAS very curious, and felt stirrings of sexual excitement.

Hope grinned slightly as she kept her focus on the shower scene underway before her, as Mayu scrubbed her body from head to toe, including shampoo. The young woman didn't invite directions by skimping on the crotch area, sudsing it thoroughly and dutifully, even reaching within to complete the task. When she was finished, Hope greeted her exit from the shower stall with the oversized towel and wrapped the freshly scrubbed young woman protectively within the soft white folds of cotton.

Hope dried the girl completely, gently patting the moisture from her body. Once Mayu's body was completely dry, Hope sat her on the couch and stepped behind her with the towel, taking several minutes to thoroughly dry the girl's long brown hair, then several more minutes to carefully brush it out for her, making sure that Mayu's hair would dry without becoming a mass of tangles.

Just as Hope was about to finish brushing Mayu's hair, she felt the same squirm in her abdomen again, although this time it felt much stronger, she could also feel her nether regions starting to tingle. It was then that she knew exactly what was going on; she was about to give birth. Hope began to tremble, a soft moan slipping past her lips as she dropped the hairbrush.

Mayu turned around to find that Hope had slid down the back of the couch and was now laying on her back as she let out another moan.

"Are you alright, Hope?" Mayu asked as she watched the older woman writhe on the carpeted floor. Hope moaned again, louder this time and spread her legs.

"Ah it-it's almost..." She moaned once again. Mayu's face instantly flushed, Hope's nether regions were in full view of her. She could see that Hope was clean shaven and soaking wet.

Suddenly Hope's entire body went stiff as she threw her head back and moaned loudly as a small creature began to slither out of her.

Once Mayu noticed that the strange thing was a large twelve-inch long, two-inch thick leech, she shrieked in fear, falling off the couch before then scooting back along the floor until she was up against the wall.

When the leech had come out completely, Hope sighed as she stood up, gathering the leech which she had just spawned and placing it in a small water filled glass cube. After closing the lid, she looked over towards Mayu, who was now huddled against the wall, her face a mix of shock and disgust.

"Mayu, are you okay?" Hope asked as she started to walk towards the younger woman.

"Wha-What was that!" Mayu asked in shock.

"Oh, that? That was just a little something that the girls and I do from time to time." Hope explained.

"How is that even possible, it goes against both nature and science." Mayu said.

"Remember Mayu, the others and I are all demi-gods, so the laws of science, as well as those of nature, don't really apply to us." Hope explained as she reached out and helped Mayu off the floor.

"But how?" Mayu asked, still clearly confused.

Hope thought for a moment. "Remember the biblical couple Adam and Eve? Well, in our group Kira is Adam, while Murrue, Lacus, Cagalli and I are all Eve." She rationalized.

"What are you going to do with that thing." Mayu asked, pointing at the leech as it swam in the small tank which Hope had put it into earlier.

"That one," Hope answered. "Will most likely be taken to the medical wing and used for medicinal purposes."

Mayu nodded and stood up, but before she could move away from the wall, Hope pressed her body to Mayu's and captured her lips in a heated and lustful kiss.

When Hope finally pulled away she could see a pink hue on Mayu's white cheeks. Hope grinned as she led Mayu into the bedroom. Mayu was amazed at the size of it, the bed alone seemed like it was large enough to accommodate Kira as well as his many lovers all at the same time.

"Mayu..." Hope breathed as she gently pushed her onto the bed. "I can't take it anymore. After I give birth to one of those leeches I'm always so horny." Hope said with lust clouding her eyes. Mayu blushed as she laid on her back, her hand above her head, Hope hovering over her.

"I don't have any experience." Mayu said, even as her arousal quickly took hold.

"Don't worry. I'll lead." Hope reassured the younger woman. With that said, Hope brought herself closer to Mayu and the two women engaged in another heated kiss. Hope then reached up and grabbed a pair of thin silk scarves, each of the scarves had one end tied to the large headboard of the bed, while the other ends where free. Hope tied the scarves around both of Mayu's wrists. Mayu didn't protest as she knew this was most likely the start of one the more extreme things which Kira and the others did while in bed.

Mayu let out a soft moan as Hope took her entire left nipple into her mouth and applied gentle suction, swirling her tongue around the areola of Mayu's breast while her hand kneaded its lonely companion. Mayu moaned again as Hope's free hand went down to her dripping wet womanhood. She placed two fingers inside and started to move them about, almost as if she were exploring the younger woman. This went one for another ten minutes before Hope stopped and sat up. Mayu let out a small whimper.

"Please, Hope, don't stop." She begged.

Hope just smiled and planted a small kiss on Mayu's forehead. Hope then crawled over to the nightstand and took two small leeches from a small fishbowl. Mayu whined when she saw what Hope had in her hand.

"Mayu, this is the best way to get over your fear. Trust me, you'll absolutely love how it feels." Hope said as she straddled the younger woman's waist and placed the two small creatures on her breasts. Hope then tapped the creatures so they would begin sucking on Mayu's nipples, and in response, Mayu squirmed in disgust as she tried to shake the creatures off her breasts.

"You know Mayu, if these relatively small leeches scare you so much, you'd hate it if I decided to use the leeches which I use on myself," Hope paused for a few seconds before continuing, "They can completely swallow my breasts."

Mayu paused as the image popped into her head, surprisingly, she realized that she was blushing at the idea.

_'No wonder they are so secretive about their sex life.'_ Mayu thought.

"I know, and that's why we don't talk about it outside this area of the ship." Hope said after reading Mayu's thoughts.

Moans continued to echo through the bedroom as Mayu and Hope then began to rub their clits together. All of a sudden, Hope could feel the familiar feeling that she was about to birth another leech.

"M-Mayu I'm..." Hope moaned. "I'm going to have another leech."

"Please..." Mayu moaned. "Give it to me." Hope's moans increased as she began giving birth. Immeditly, the leech slithered out of Hope's womanhood and into Mayu's. Mayu gasped and moaned even louder as the leech wiggled inside of her. It had gone in just up to her hymen.

"Ho-Hope, I-I feel strange." Mayu moaned as she felt her stomach muscles beginning to tighten up. "I think I'm going to pee. Untie me." Mayu begged, but Hope simply bent down and planted a kiss on the younger woman's lips.

"Don't worry, Mayu, you're about to have an orgasm. I'm close too." Hope explained and sure enough, less than a minute later, Mayu let out a loud moan as her very first orgasm rocked her body, she was followed an instant later by Hope's own orgasm.

After quickly drinking the vaginal fluids of the two women, the larger leech slipped out of both Mayu and Hope and fell to the floor. Hope collapsed on top of Mayu, and as they enjoyed the afterglow of their orgasms, Mayu moaned again, as she felt something slowly trickling out of her breasts. She looked down and saw a white fluid seeping from her breasts as the two small leeches drank it.

"A little bonus after getting your boobs enlarged." Hope said. "Now you have the ability to lactate like the rest of us."

"It feels so good." Mayu breathed.

"It's one of Kira's favorite fetishes aside from long hair; he loves to breastfeed." Hope smiled as Mayu continued to moan in pleasure.

It was then that Hope got an idea.

She got off the bed, walked over to a corner of the room and picked up what looked like a medium sized flower pot. She smiled as she walked back over to Mayu, placed the plant on the floor, at the edge of the bed and crawled back onto the bed.

Mayu was surprised to see Hope untie her arms. Hope then picked Mayu up and cradled her upper body like a mother would cradle her infant child. Mayu looked up at Hope confused as to why she was now free. She then looked over and saw the plant on the floor, it had three vines curled up exiting from a bulb protruding from the soil.

"Is that a real lovelock plant?" Mayu asked.

"Yes it is, it's not that mature, but it is a lovelock." Hope answered.

Mayu suddenly felt something drip onto her cheek, then she heard Hope softly ask. "Are you hungry, Mayu? I have something for you." Mayu could now see a slow yet steady stream of milk dripping from Hope's breasts.

Mayu smiled. "Now that you mention it, I am."

"Then feed, little one, feed." Hope sweetly said.

Mayu closed her eyes, latched onto Hope's left breast and began to suckle, pulling the nutrition fill liquid from its home. Hope moaned as Mayu continued to feed, and using her foot, she tapped the center vine of the lovelock plant until it began to uncoil.

The two outer vines uncoiled as well and snaked around Hope's ankles. While Mayu continued to feed on Hope's milk, the lovelock spread Hope's legs as the leaves of its center vine peeled back revealing the familiar sex organ. Hope moaned as the young plant moved inside her, all the while Mayu was still feeding.

"My someone really is hungry." Hope breathed as she continued to hold Mayu, while the lovelock began to speed up the pace of its thrusts. Hope moaned again and began to finger Mayu, in a effort to get the two of them to orgasm simultaniously. Mayu moaned in response to the stimulation as she continued to suckle. Within a matter of minutes, the lovelock gave one powerful thrust and planted its seeds in Hope's body.

Hope reached her climax not long after, with Mayu's right after her own. The two women fell back on the bed, Mayu still laying on Hope's chest. Hope smiled as she could see that the younger girl had fallen asleep, and she soon followed suit. But little did they know, their peaceful slumber would not last.


	8. The Defectors from Nerv

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 8**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

Misato Katsuragi's eyes shot open in surprise as the golden form of the Akatsuki Gundam unexpectedly landed in the middle of the freeway in front of her, and in response, she slammed on the brakes of her blue Renault Alpine A310. The vehicle quickly screeched to a halt, stopping only a few feet from the foot of the shimmering golden Gundam.

"What the hell, Misato?" Asuka Langley Soryu yelled from the passenger's seat, as her seatbelt saved her from being thrown through the windshield, but also pressed painfully into her abdomen.

Misato didn't answer the red-headed Evangelion pilot, instead she slowly and cautously unfastened her seatbelt and stepped out of the vehicle, watching in shock as the cockpit hatch of the golden machine opened and a person, clad in a pink-and-white flight suit, descended on the zip line.

"What do you people want from us?" Misato growled, raising her pistol and pointing it at the figure.

"That is very simple, Misato Katsuragi." The figure, who was none other than the former leader of the Orb Union, Cagalli Yula Athha, answered. "As you saw in the last battle, our technology is vastly superior to your own. I am here to offer you a choice, a chance for salvation."

By this time, Asuka had climbed out of the car. Without saying anything, the firey red-head walked up to Cagalli, raised her fist and let the punch fly, but to her surprise, all she hit was air. A fraction of a second later, Asuka felt her arm being twisted behind her back, just short of the breaking point.

"H-how in the hell?" Asuka asked in confusion. To her eyes, it appeared as though her hit had connected.

"Not only is our technology vastly superior to yours, but we are also vastly superior to you." Cagalli calmly replied. "Now, I suggest that the two of you listen to what I am about to say, it may just save your lives."

"Are you sure about this, Misato?" Asuka asked nearly an hour later, as she quickly donned her crimson colored plug suit.

"I'd rather be labeled as a traitor than be killed in Third Impact, Asuka." Misato replied as she stood across the locker room, donning a silver plug suit. Once the two women were ready, they sprinted to the open entry pulgs of Evangelion Unit 02 and Evangelion Unit 04.

While Asuka climbed into her own crimson-colored Evangelion Unit 02, Misato climbed into the silver-colored Evangelion Unit 04, and after a few short moments, both of the Evangelion Units came to life.

"Whoa, what the hell are these?" Asuka asked, more to herself then to Misato, as she noticed that there were a few new weapons and defenses at her disposal. "Beam shields, Mirror Coated Phase Shift armor, beam sabers, beam rifles, beam machine guns?"

"Who cares, Asuka?" Misato replied, as countless alarms began to sound throughout the base. "Let's get out of here!"

"Why are you two doing this!" Shinji Ikari asked five minutes later from within the entry plug of Evangelion Unit 01 as he stared at the forms of Evangelion Units 02 and 04.

"We are doing this because we would rather be labeled at traitors than be killed in Third Impact!" Asuka yelled as she opened fire with her shoulder-mounted beam machine guns, obliterating a group of tanks which had been relentlessly pounding her with shells.

"Attention; Misato Katsuragi, Asuka Langley Soryu." The voice of Cagalli Yula Athha boomed from the speakers in Evangelion Units 02 and 04. "One of our Minerva-class battleships, the Gladys, is currently descending towards your location. I am fully aware that the Evangelion Units do not posess the ability of flight, however, I do know that they can jump incredible distances. When you see the Gladys, please try to jump towards the open hanger bays near the bow of the ship."

Misato's eyes widened as the black-and-yellow form of the Minerva-class battleship Gladys appeared about a quarter mile away and at a height of nearly 100 meters above the ground. Without any hesitation, the two Evangelion Units ran towards the ship and jumped.

A few nerve-wracking seconds later, Evangelion Unit 02 crash landed in the starboard side hanger bay, while Evangelion Unit 04 crash landed in the port side hanger bay, and as the two Evas were quickly secured, the Gladys once again vanished underneath the veil of its Phase Cloak, before igniting its thrusters and climbng back towards the Excalibur, which was hovering within the upper stratosphere.

A few days had passed since Misato Katsuragi and Asuka Langley Soryu had defected, stealing Evangelion Unit 02 and Evangelion Unit 04 in the process. Now, everyone in the Nerv command center watched in shock and awe as the Excalibur suddenly lifted up its nose and turned to the left, the massive dagger-shaped ship rolling onto its back before it intentionally stalled out. The Excalibur's nose dipped sharply down, the bow of the massive vessel effortlessly plowing through the pursuing fighter aircraft as its nose pointed towards the ground, more than five miles below.

As the explosions from the enemy aircraft slowly faded, countless numbers of searing green beam blasts erupted from the Excalibur's high-energy beam cannons. Less than a quarter of a second had passed before one and a half million beam blasts smashed into the ground below, vaporizing countless buildings and liquifying sixteen layers of armor with only a single hellish volley.

As the massive ship screamed towards the ground, still spewing millions of beam blasts, Kira forced a communications line open on all frequencies.

"Why did it turn out like this?" Kira rethorically asked. "Even if we think about it, we already know it is meaningless, yet my heart is wandering in search for an answer as to why this pointless war has continued." The amethyst-eyed man sighed softly before continuing. "We experienced a devastating war not too long ago, and we swore at that time that we would never repeat such catastrophes again. And yet, our efforts were in vain, and hostilities have opened up once again. This war has spread without any protest, and we have gained the same sadness and pain once again." He paused for a moment as the Excalibur continued to belch forth a relentless barrage of beam blasts.

"Honestly, what is the meaning of this foolish and tragic repetition of war?" Kira asked, as the Excalibur punched through the roof of the Geofront. Everyone in the Nerv command center stared at the ship as it then proceeded to defy any kind of known physics, coming to an instantanous stop while rotating so that it was once more level with the ground.

As soon as the Excalibur was once more level with the ground, the angelic form of the Divinity Gundam streaked from the ship's centerline catapult.

Kira smirked within the cockpit as he gave one simple order. "Release the banshees."

A few seconds later, thousands of ear-peircing shrieks were heard as a massive swarn of banshees hurtled out of the Excalibur's launch bays.

If the creatures weren't so deadly, one might consider them to be beautiful. The banshees were shaped like manta rays, swooping through the sky on translucent wing membranes as their glassy fangs unfolded from their mouths like cat-claws. The banshees varied greatly in size, the smallest had less than a three meter wingspan, while the largest had a wingspan of nearly nine meters.

As the banshees began to omniously circle above the Nerv command center, the Epyon, Wing Gundam Zero, Strike Freedom, Justice, Infinite Justice, Akatsuki, Cherudim, Arios, Seravee, Exia, 0-Gundam, 00-Raiser, GN Archer, a pair of Destiny Gundams, and finally the 000 Gundam; a total of fifteen mobile suits in all, launched from the Excalibur's massive main hanger.

Kira smirked as he transformed the Divinity Gundam into its flight mode, the banshees quickly falling into formation behind him. Ten banshees to a group, the creatures quickly formed into countless numbers of delta patterns, like huge flocks of migrating geese. The Divinity Gundam, followed closely by the hordes of banshees, dove together toward the pyramid-shaped command center far below.

As the swarn of banshees, led by the Divinity Gundam, dove towards the pyramid-shaped command center, thousands of aircraft launched from the Excalibur's dozens of hanger bays.

Among the aircraft now pouring from the Excalibur's launch bays were; Tornado 4s, F-14D Super Tomcats, F-15E Strike Eagles, F/A-18E Super Hornets, F-117A Nighthawks, F-22A Raptors, Su-47 Berkuts, B-52 Stratofortresses, B-2 Spirits, XB-70 Valkyries and FB-22 Strike Raptors.

"We are so fucked." Ritsuko Akagi muttered to herself as the Divinity Gundam's plasma cannons emerged from its wings and opened fire, blowing a massive hole in the side of the pyramid-shaped building and allowing the shrieking hordes of banshees to enter the command center itself.

A few short seconds later, all hell had broken loose. Within the main command center, Maya Ibuki screamed in horror as a blue-and-green banshee suddenly swooped down on her. Maya was somehow able to duck in time to avoid the strike, but Shigeru Aoba wasn't as quick as Maya. There was a deafening shriek as the banshee sunk its claws deep into the man's chest and bit down with a sickening crunch, slicing his body in half at the waist and spilling a massive pool of blood onto the floor.

While the banshees dealt with the human element within the Nerv command center, the Divinity Gundam had undergone quantamizatiuon and had now reappeared within the Evangelion storage cages.

"Divinity has located the targets." Kira said from the Divinity Gundam's cockpit. "Have concluded that the staff of Nerv and the Evangelion Units in their posession are guilty of promoting conflict. Commencing armed intervention. Divinity will eliminate the targets."

Meanwhile, back in the Excalibur's primary hanger bay, Lacus Clyne climbed into the cockpit of the newly completed ZGMF-X14A Chimera Gundam. She immediately activated the mobile suit's systems and read the name of the mobile suit.

"ZGMF-X14A Chimera Gundam, so this is the demonic version of the legendary Freedom Gundam. Why in the world did Kira even approve the consturction of this machine?" Lacus asked herself, as she took a deep breath after reading the schematics.

The ZGMF-X14A Chimera Gundam was indeed a rebuild of the legendary ZAFT-built ZGMF-X10A Freedom Gundam, although, unlike the original Freedom, which had been colored; white with a black chest, blue wings and yellow eyes, the Chimera was colored; grey with a black chest, blood red wings and crimson eyes.

Lacus sighed softly as she brought the machine to life. As the monitors activated, Lacus noticed that the ZGMF-X56S Impulse Gundam had been activated, she also noticed that the Impulse had been equipped with it's Destiny Silhouette, and was moving towards the launch catapult.

"Who's in there?" Lacus asked as she raised the Chimera's beam rifle and pointed it at the Impulse.

"It's just me, Lacus." The voice of Mayu Asuka quickly replied from the Impulse as her face appeared on one of Lacus's sub screens.

Lacus smply nodded as she lowered the rifle and moved the Chimera to stand beside the Impulse on the catapult. Three short seconds later, the two machines streaked out of the Excalibur's hanger bay.


	9. The End of Evangelion

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 9**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

Kira Yamato snarled within the cockpit of the Divinity Gundam as he met Shinji Ikari in a deadlock, with the Divinity Gundam's beam shield pressed hard against the AT Field of the purple Evangelion Unit.

After a few short seconds, Kira's beam shield generator exploded from the intense pressure put on it and Kira growled as he quickly backed away from Evangeliom Unit 01.

As the Divinity Gundam came to a stop, its eyes glowed and flickered for a few moments, before steadily glowing with an eerie yellow light, causing Shinji to take a step back.

Kira smirked as he ejected the Gundam's right hand, which exploded upon hitting the ground, and allowed a razor-sharp, three-bladed claw to slide out of the machine's forearm. The amethyst-eyed man grinned ever so slightly as the three-bladed claw that now took the place of his machine's right hand, began to rapidly spin.

Within Evangelion Unit 01's entry plug, Shinji Ikari stared in horror as the Divinity Gundam brought its right arm back, before then thrusting it forward. The rapidly spinning claw rebounded an instant later, however, as it encountered Evangelion Unit 01's AT Field.

"Oh, that's right." Kira muttered within the Divinity Gundam's cockpit, his voice transmitting through the all-frequency, open-channel communications line, as the purple Evangelion Unit carefully backed away. "You people aren't smart enough to develop beam weapons, and as if that wasn't bad enough, you also use these shitty things which you refer to as Evangelion Units." The amethyst-eyed man smirked, even as his machine gestured towards Evangelion Unit 01.

"I don't know about you." Shinji Ikari sighed from within Evangelion Unit 01's entry plug. "But I am fighing to protect the human race."

"That's complete bullshit!" Kira roared. "You don't even want to be a pilot!" Shinji was about to reply, but suddenly, the Divinity Gundam's faceplate split, revealing a mouth full of bright white teeth, causing the pilot of Evangelion Unit 01 to freeze as he stared in horror at the angelic machine.

"Wha-what is that thing?" Shinji asked as he freed the progressive knife from his right shoulder and moved into a defensive stance.

"Shinji Ikari, do you even know why you able to synchronize with that Evangelion Unit?" Kira asked, completely ignoring the Evangelion pilot's question. Kira didn't even wait for Shinji to answer; instead, the amethyst-eyed man answered the question himself. "You are able to synchronize with that thing only because it contains the soul of your mother, Yui Ikari."

Shinji's eyes widened in disbelief. "Wh-what?"

"The soul of your mother, Yui Ikari, resides within Evangelion Unit 01." Kira repeated as he raised his beam rifle, aiming for the horned head of the purple beast. "Asuka Langley Soryu and Misato Katsuragi have both deicded to fight for Celestial Being. They have choosen that path of their own free will."

"Shinji!" The voices of Misato Katsuragi and Asuka Langley Soryu suddenly shouted through the communications line as Evangelion Unit 02 and Evangelion Unit 04 gently landed on either side of the Divinity Gundam.

"We don't want to fight you, Shinji!" Asuka begged. "Please surrender!"

"If you surrender now." Misato spoke. "You will not be held responsible for any actions taken while under the command of Nerv."

"The pilot of Evangelion Unit 02 and the Lieutenant Colonel are tratiors!" The voice of Gendo Ikari shouted. "Eliminate them!"

"Please shut the fuck up, Bastard Ikari!" Kira snarled as he forcibly closed the communications line from Nerv headquarters.

Evangelion Unit 00 lay prone on a nearby hill. Rei Ayanami watched the battle below as her finger slowly tightened on the trigger of the sniper rifle.

"All units, status report!" Murrue barked as the Strike Freedom Gundam launched from the Excalibur's centerline launch bay.

Kira cut her off as an alarm suddenly began to sound. "MASSIVE ENERGY READING, ON THE-"

There was a twinkle, but it instantly elongated into a lance of purple light. The lance slammed into the Akatsuki Gundam's chest and bounced harmlessly away, only to impact on a nearby skyscraper.

"Sniper on the hill! Asuka, handle it!" Kira growled as the Celestial Being forces quickly scattered.

"With pleasure." The red-headed pilot replied, freeing the recently equipped twin buster rifle from her back and unleashing a massive column of energy which vaporized the hillside, taking Evangelion Unit 00 along with it.

The few people whom were still alive within the Nerv Command Center watched in muted horror as Evangelion Unit 02 freed a massive, twin barreled rifle from its back and unleashed a blindingly bright column of yellow energy, completely vaporizing Evangelion Unit 00 an instant later.

"This is not what I joined Celestial Being to do." Shinn Asuka said with a heavy sigh, as he sat in the Destiny Gundam's cockpit.

"You joined Celestial Being to serve and protect the world from all threats, external and internal, right?" Rey replied from the Legend Gundam's cockpit, with a slight edge to his voice. "You may not agree with this course of action. You may not think it fair. You might even think that it is wrong and reprehensible. You are welcome to your differences in opinion...as long as you keep them to yourself. As a Gundam Miester, you are an instrument of Celestial Being, and it is against our code of conduct to publicly disagree with or cast doubt upon the motives of Celestial Being or its senior officials."

"I'm not sure that I want to be a Gundam Miester anymore, and I don't think Luna does either. We've both caught way too much shit off the fan, and we're most certianly not the only ones." Shinn admitted.

"I won't force either of you to stay." Rey responded at once, with narrowed eyes. "But you should think long and hard about what sort of benefits you are giving up if do decide to become civilians again. As a Gundam Miester, right now you have fame, the respect of your peers, superiors and subordinates, and automatic forgiveness for many different things. As the pilot of the Destiny, which has already become one of the many symbols of Celestial Being, you have a very successful and even luxurious career ahead of you, with privileges and benefits you could barely imagine. Just...be aware of what you might be turning your back on, over a little personal distaste."

"Are you...bribing me, Rey?" Shinn sounded like he was caught between anger and surprise. "Or threatening me?"

"I am explaining the realities of your situation to you, as your friend, because you don't seem to have been considering them to me." Rey countered neutrally. "As a Gundam Miester you're someone special...someone very special in your case. As just Shinn Asuka, you're just another young, jobless Coordinator, among hundreds of millions of other young, jobless, desperate men. You have Luna..." Rey paused. "But fierce young love doesn't put food on the table, and the reputation of your past career doesn't pay bills, especially as you won't be legally able to talk to anyone about any details of your time in Celestial Being."

"So...are we done here now?" Shinn asked in a louder voice, shelving the whole discussion for the moment.

"Not quite." Rey answered as he called up some data on one of his screens, and linked it to Shinn. "There are still two small problems; the Chimera Gundam and the Divinity Gundam. Once they are gone, we will be done, and then it's just a matter of waiting for our "special forces" to bring Gendo Ikari out to us. Before the sun sets, with the speed of your Gundam, you will be back together with Luna. But no one is going anywhere until those two Gundams are nothing but flaming scrap."

Not wasting any time, heart heavy but mind determined, Shinn raised his anti-ship sword and took aim at the Chimera Gundam and then swung with all the power of both hands, the heavy sword crashing into the middle of the Mirror Coated Phase Shift armored shield, failing to penetrate in an explosion of gold sparks, but the sheer force of impact knocked the Gundam down onto its side. In an instant, Shinn had kicked the shield away, sending it skittering away, and then stood poised over the Chimera with the sword raised high for a downward stab through the cockpit and reactor housing.

"WHAT THE FUCKING HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING!" Lacus Clyne shrieked in surprise at the completely wanton and unexpected attack, even as she ignited the Chimera's thrusters, barely dodging the Destiny's next strike.

In less time than it took to blink an eye, the Destiny Gundam found itself tumbling through the sky, courtesy of a bone-jarring punch, which had been delivered by the recently upgraded Evangelion Unit 02. As the Destiny Gundam tumbled through the sky, the crimson Evangelion Unit pummeled the red, white and blue Gundam with a barrage of beam blasts and bazooka shells, disabling its thrusters and sending it slamming into the ground below.

A fraction of a second later, both the Providence and Legend Gundams vanished within massive fireballs, both of the grey machines having been pierced by beam blasts which had been fired by the Akatsuki as it stood in front of the Chimera Gundam, shielding the black and crimson machine with its own body.


	10. Towards a New Future

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 10**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

"Still no change in his location?" Mu La Flaga asked Athrun Zala as the group of soldiers carefully made their way towards the Nerv command center.

"None I can detect. He's about thirty meters above us, and maybe fifty meters to our right." Athrun answered, pointing off in the indicated direction. "He is very agitated and somewhat afraid."

"You think he'll surrender?" One of the soldiers asked, cocking his head in bemusement.

"Oh no." Athrun shook his head definitely. "He intends to fight us."

"Surrender, Ikari." Athrun yelled a few minutes later as he stepped into the blood soaked command center, coming face to face with Gendo Ikari. "Give youself up to us. We will take you back to our ship and you will have a fair trial." Athrun replied firmly. "It may very well be the court's decision to end your life for what you have done, but I will give you the chance to make at least some amends to the world. Although you will never be able to erase the sins you have committed upon the world and humanity."

Gendo laughed bitterly. "A fair trial? Don't bullshit me. There can be no such thing with regard to me. Where would you get a jury that was not biased either for or against me? Where would we find a judge that did not blame me for what I have done? No, my guilt is assured, and so is my fate. I won't sell you my pride, its all I have left." Just as he finished, Meyrin Hawke slammed the butt of her rifle into the back of Gendo's head, knocking him unconsious.

"I'm of a mind to consider your bullshit antics yesterday as an act of war." Cagalli said, her anger hot and readily visible on her face as she leaned partway across the heavy wooden table to glare more closely at Gendo Ikari, seated comfortably across from her, just outside arm's reach. "God himself knows, I'd be justified in doing so. You attacked and destroyed Celestial Being military forces without warning. Moreover, you purposefully cut communications between those soldiers and their upper chain of command, to prevent them from getting an official word on how to respond to your illegal actions. And then you took my soldiers hostage at gunpoint after they had suffered and died. If you want a fight with us, Ikari, I'll be glad to give you one you'll never forget."

"Your Majesty, I am offended." Gendo replied with smug calm. "These baseless accusations serve no purpose but as an ill conceived outlet for your personal feelings. They have no place at the diplomatic table. If you cannot be civil, I will have to ask that you be removed from your position."

"WHY YOU LITTLE PIECE OF FUCKING SHIT!" Cagalli almost came over the table at him. Only Murrue all but leaping forward from her position by the doors and slamming Cagalli back into her chair by her hands on the blonde's shoulders prevented that very thing from happening. "HOW DARE YOU!"

"We have eyewitness reports from over forty people of your illegal actions, you lying bastard!" Hope Yamato, in the chair next to Cagalli, spoke up with barely uncontrolled rage, although she was perfectly willing to let Cagalli supply the bombast and emotion they all so desperately wanted to release in this emergency meeting. "Our accusations are hardly baseless. All the stories state the exact same thing. Unless, of course, you're willing to call Lacus Clyne a liar..."

"Of course I'm willing to call her, and every other liar you provide, a liar." Gendo answered crisply. "You have the eyewitness reports of over 400 of your own patriotic soldiers, who are legally and morally obliged to follow your orders and even lie for you, plus a handful of personal friends. What you don't have is solid proof, visual or auditory, or eyewitness reports from unbiased sources. And if you cannot offer me proof, then I am afraid I can lend no credence to these fantastical and frankly disturbingly partisan accusations."

Hope was about to retort when Gendo held up a finger to quell her, and continued on, glancing from time to time at a small monitor that was clipped to his side of the table, the screen turned so only he could see it. "Furthermore, leaping directly into threatening to declare war over these unsubstantiated rumors and accusations, I cannot help but regard as another personal attack. I cannot believe Her Majesty speaks for all of Celestial Being when she displays such a warmongering attitude. That would be very, very unfortunate. Because Celestial Being currently has near zero military power, just a regiment or two of infantry, as well as outdated aircraft and armored vehicles. So if you really want to go to war with Nerv, well then I have this to say." Gendo paused and smirked. "Bring it on. I can have four divisions of mechanized infantry on the ground below, plus an additional three regiments of those weapons that you call "mobile suits", and that is before calling upon the JSSDF to help subdue your rebellion. I can promise you, it will be one of the shortest wars in history."

"You captured our soldiers and then stripped them naked and confiscated all of their gear, including their combat recorders. It's little wonder we don't have any proof to show you." Cagalli snapped. She pointed furiously off to her side, where Lacus and Kira were sitting, both of them merged with their Gundams, with deep frowns on their faces. Kira especially was all but trembling with rage. "Your soldiers, on your orders, stripped a pregnant woman naked in front of hundreds of men and then cavity searched her! THREE TIMES! DON'T YOU HAVE ANY SHAME!"

"I have no shame for events that did not occur. Or cannot be proved to have occur-" Gendo's reply was suddenly cut short, as Kira had finally lost his cool. Before anyone knew it had even happened, Kira had armed his railguns and fired. The high-veloctiy shells effortlessly tore through Gendo's body, instantly reducing it to nothing more than a fine red mist which slowly dispersed and vanished.

A few days later, the Excalibur drifted silently through space as it orbited the moon. The massive ship was currently out of action while its crew was allowed to rest. Crew members filled many of the ship's large observation decks and spaces. All except the upper most observation deck located just behind the main bridge.

Misato Katsuragi stood alone in the massive rotunda looking out at the stars. The observation deck in question was a massive dome with a full three hundred and sixty degree view. The dome was ringed with a long artificial flower garden that met with the base of the dome and a hand rail on the opposite side.

In the center sat a large white marble obelisk also surrounded by a smaller hand rail. At the base of the obelisk were four small statues of the Ptolemaios, Ptolemaios II, the Archangel and the Eternal. On the sides were four carved tear drop shapes, each representing one of the original four GN drives. Higher up on what could be considered the 'front' was a carving of the angelic Celestial Being logo with Latin words circling it, which read 'Celestial Res, Ut terminus totus bellum' the words, when translated into English meant 'Celestial Being, to end all war'.

It was then that the main entrance door opened with a pneumatic hiss and Lacus Clyne floated through. She had come here to relax after she had finished some last minute work on the bridge. It was then that she saw Misato on the far side looking out at the stars, lost in her thoughts. Lacus drifted over to the former Nerv lieutenant colonel. Lacus grabbed the railing next to Misato steadying herself in the zero gravity.

Misato hadn't noticed that Lacus was now standing next to her as she was busy looking at her old Nerv rank insignia pins, which she held in her hand. After a few moments of complete silence, Lacus decided to make her presence known as she asked. "Are you feeling alright, Ms. Katsuragi?"

Misato squeaked with a start as she turned to face Lacus. "Oh, it's you." She said, even as she kept her grip on the brass railing to keep from floating away. "You startled me."

"My apologies, ma'am." Lacus said politely.

"It's alright uh..." Misato trailed off trying to remember the younger woman's name.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I haven't properly introduced myself." Lacus said extending her hand out towards the other woman. "I'm Lacus Clyne, Celestial Being's chief representative and one of many Gundam Miesters."

Misato hesitated for a moment, but then she smiled and took Lacus's hand, shaking it. "I'm Lieutenant Colonel Misato Katsuragi, chief tactical officer of Nerv combat division section one...well formerly."

"I think can sort of understand how you must be feeling right now, Ms. Katsuragi." Lacus sighed. "We were once faced with overwhelming odds, and were forced to abandon our planet and our people." As the blue-eyed woman continued, Misato noticed tears welling up in her eyes. "After about two years we finally returned, but there was nothing left. The Earth had been hit by a giant, space borne gamma-ray laser called GENESIS, and our orbiting colonies, known as PLANTs, had been bombed out by nuclear weapons. Most of the PLANTs had been thrown from their orbit while being bombed and eventually crashed into the Earth, sealing the planet's fate, and guaranteeing the extinction of humanity."

"In a way, that sounds somewhat similar to what was supposed to happen if the Third Impact ever took place." Misato said, smiling sadly. "It was said that if an Angel, our name for the creatures which had been attacking us, ever came into contact with Adam, the first angel whom we had been protecting, humanity would be annihilated in the Third Impact."

"It seems that we both lived in violent times." Lacus sighed, wiping a tear from her eye and after a moment of silence, she continued. "I have not forgotten the atrocities which were committed in the past, and I want to end all conflict. That is why I joined Celestial Being and have dedicated myself to eliminating all conflict."

"The elimination of all conflict." Misato mused.

"Yes." Lacus replied. "That is Celestial Being's purpose."

"Ms. Clyne?" Misato asked, after nearly an entire minute had passed in complete silence. "If I may ask; why does Celestial Being need a ship like this?"

Lacus allowed a sad smile to cross her features as she answered the other woman's question. "While a ship as powerful as the Excalibur may seem to be overkill, we have learned from past experience that some people do not stop fighting unless faced with truly overwhelming firepower." The blue-eyed beauty paused for a few seconds before adding. "And you can call me Lacus."

"You guys are all so laid back." Misato commented. "Considering the mission to which you have dedicated yourselves, I can't understand how you can all be so relaxed."

_'Does she know that we are Gods?'_ Lacus thought to herself, but she pushed the thought to the back of her mind as she replied. "While we may seem to be ruthless and emotionless on the battlefield, we are still human, Misato."

"No offence, Lacus. But given what I have seen so far, I will need proof that you people are still human." Misato frowned. "No human I know is capable of fighting in the manner you people can."

Lacus didn't answer, at least not verbally. Instead, the pink-haired beauty grabbed Misato's shoulders and turned her so that they were facing each other. An instant later, Lacus pressed a deep and passionate kiss to the other woman's lips.


	11. Towards Twilight

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 11**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

Two years had passed since the Third Bloody Valentine War had begun, the Earth was in ruins and most of the PLANTs had been destroyed.

Suddenly, inside the debris belt around Earth, a single bright white flash of light lit up the blackenss, as the Celestial Being warship Excalibur streaked into the universe.

Five minutes later, as the massive dagger-shaped warship of Celestial Being silently floated within the debris belt, Lacus shouted. "Captain, we have a massive ship coming in from out port side! Our computers have already identified it as the ZAFT warship Executer!"

Kira grinned as he glanced at Hope and said. "Hope, target the Exectuer with the EMP Cannons."

"All EMP Cannons are locked onto the Executer." Hope reported as the Excalibur's shields lit up, a blue bubble surrounding and protected the massive ship as it began to shudder ever so slightly under the firepower of the Executer.

"Fire." Kira ordered, his voice completely calm and emotionless.

Dozens of invisible EMPs suddenly lanced out from the Excalibur, instantly washing over the Executer and completely disabling it. Kira smirked as he tapped a few buttons on his chair, activating the Excalibur's recently installed tractor beams and slowly dragging the huge ZAFT warship into one of the Excalibur's vacent hanger bays.

As soon as the ZAFT warship had been secured within the Excalibur's previously vacent hanger bay, the massive ship sped into the distance before once more vanishing within a bright white flash of light.

"So, now where the hell are we?" Cagalli asked as the Excalibur appeared within a diffrent universe, the massive ship floating high above another version of the Earth.

"Well, according to the sensor systems, the current year is 2009." Lacus answered. "And there appear to have been multiple animal attacks in a small town known as 'Forks' in Washington state."

"Animal attacks?" Kira asked, disbelief obvious in his tone of voice. "You don't seriously expect me to believe that animal attacks are the worst problems in this universe, do you, Lacus?"

Lacus merely shurgged, she honestly didn't have any answers at the moment.

"Well, either way, I'm going to take the Divinity Gundam down there, maybe I'll be able to discover something." Kira suggested as he moved towards the door.

"Right now, all we really know for sure is that we can't let this situation go on, but we don't know how, or even what has to be done." Kira sighed a few hours later, as he sat in the driver's seat of his personal vehicle; a 2008 Chrysler Firepower Concept Car.

The vehicle, while appearing to be completely normal, was actually highly customized, having been equipped wth a Zero Point Energy Module, a high-capacity energy battery, an N-jammer, Mirror Coated Phase Shift armor, advanced communications and sensor systems, a pair of rail guns hidden within the front bumper, a pair of plasma cannons hidden within the rear bumper, a pair of beam cannons hidden in the corners of the windshield frame, a pair of beam machine cannons hidden underneath the hood, and finally a positron reflector shield.

"Fighting won't do us any good, because that's the way it's always been in the past." The amethyst-eyed man continued, allowing a hint of annoyance to enter his voice. "That's why the hatred never stops and why the fighting never ends, no matter where we go."

Although it appeared as though Kira was not merged with his Gundam, in reality he was, and was merely utilizing the Divinity's holoshroud to project his own image over the armor of his machine.

"Well, in that case, I think it might not be a bad idea to simply sit back and monitor the situation for a while." Murrue replied through the open communications line.

"I guess." Kira sighed, running his hand through his hair before finally bringing the Firepower's 6.1 liter Hemi V8 engine to life with a throaty rumble.

Just as Kira pulled the vehicle onto the freeway, someone landed on the hood of his car, the Phase Shift armor easily absorbing the physical blow. Kira glared at the man which was now crouched on the hood of his speeding vehicle. The man was tall, with light brown hair and deep crimson eyes.

"Hello, human." The man hissed, and Kira instantly knew that this was no ordinary man; it was a vampire, that went by the name of James.

"Goodbye, douchebag." Kira answered, before swerving his vehicle into the concrete highway divider, throwing the man off the hood and sending him skidding for a few meters before he lunged to his feet and actually began to run after the rapidly retreating form of the Firepower concept car.

"Murrue," Kira said through the still open communiations line. "Lock onto my car with the transporters and beam it directly into the hanger bay, something's come up."

A few short seconds later, the Chrysler Firepower concept car seemed to dissolve into thin air. As the vehicle dissolved around him, Kira curled his body into a protective ball, rolling along the ground for a few feet before lunging to his feet.

To James' surprise, the human hadn't been injured at all by rolling along the road at nearly one hundred and twenty miles per hour. Kira simply smirked, even as James charged forward.

"You have absolutely no idea who you are fucking with." Kira sighed, as he deactiaved the portion of the holoshroud that hid his physical shield, bringing the white, red and black Phase Shift protected shield up and effortlessly smacking the charging vampire, sending him flying backwards to land on his ass nearly fifteen feet away.

"You, with your limited knowledge, can not possibly comprehend what you are fighting against." Kira smirked as he dropped the Divinity's holoshroud, revealing his machine's true form, while at the same time, freeing and igniting the beam sword stored on his right hip.

"I know how things are now! But I also know that things can change!" Kira roared, as his Wing of Light flared into existence, leaving blinding afterimages behind as he streaked forward. An instant later, the brightly glowing energy blade effortlesly sliced the vampire in half at the waist.

"I want a better tomorrow." Kira finished as he turned on his heels and blasted the enemy with a full-burst from his weapons, vaproizing the body. "I can't stand a world without change!"

"You're being arrogent...People aren't that smart!" A second voice spoke from the side of the road, Kira growled as he turned to face the source of the voice.

"You're the arrogent one! I'm just one man!" Kira snarled as he raised the twin buster rifle in his left hand, pulling the trigger without so much as a second thought. The blindingly bright energy blast instantly vaporized the second vampire, in addition to carving out a five-mile long, fifty-foot wide and ten-foot deep trench in the ground. As the beam blast faded, Kira heard rapidly approaching police sirens.

"Time to show these people what Celestial Being is truly capable of." Kira muttuered to himself, as he allowed the Divinty Gundam to once more assume its true height of 19.5 meters. The officers on the ground below stared in awe at the angelic machine that now towered over them, even as Kira aimed his beam rifle at the four police cars which had screehed to a stop only a quarter mile away.

Within the cockpit of the Divinty Gundam, Kira smirked as he unleashed his DRAGOON units, the remote weapons elegantly spiraling through the sky for nearly an entire minute, leaving thin trails of brightly glowing GN particles along their flight paths, before they once again docked on the back of the machine.

"Well, I believe that I have just provided a subtle example of our powers." Kira smiled to himself as the Divinity Gundam spread its wings while also igniting its thrusters, before taking to the air.

"Thanks to your reckless antics down here, the United States is considering launching nuclear weapons at us!" Mayu Asuka sighed as she and Kira walked towards the Excalibur's bridge, about one week later.

"Nuclear weapons?" Kira scoffed. "That is exactly why we have N-jammers built into the Excalibur's hull. As long as we have the N-jammers, nuclear weapons are nothing to worry about."

Just as the two walked onto the Excalibur's bridge a few moments later, the attack alarms began to blare.

"Oh, for fuck's sake." Kira sighed in annoyance as he quickly turned and began to make his way back towards the hanger bay. Two short minutes later, the Divinity Gundam, in its flight mode, streaked out of the Excalibur's centerline catapult.

"What's that?" Kira asked his monitors as what appeared to be a fighter jet quickly flew towards the Excalibur. The amethyst-eyed man watched in horror as the fighter began contorting and transformed into a mobile suit, or more specifically, what looked like a Gundam, one which possessed a very large beam weapon for its primary.

"Oh, shit, that's a Gundam! It's a transformable Gundam!" Kira yelled in alarm as he transformed the Divinity Gundam into its mobile suit mode, seizing two of the machine's beam boomerangs off the shoulder racks and hurling them towards the approaching Gundam.

The enemy Gundam quickly brought its buster rifle to bear and pulled the trigger, obliterating both of the Divinity Gundam's beam boomerangs with a single shot.

"You've got to be kidding me, Kira!" Lacus yelled from the cockpit of the Infinite Justice Gundam as the pink machine boosted out of the Excalibur's launch bay. "We are the only ones in this universe that even have the technology needed to create mass production mobile suits, much less Gundams."

Kira scowled as he seized the Divinity Gundam's second pair of beam boomerangs off their elbow racks and hurled them at the still approaching enemy Gundam.

As the second pair of twirling beam blades forced the enemy Gundam to dodge, Kira reached up to his wings, freeing the twin plasma cannons and combining them into a double barreled rifle.

"So you want to fight like that, huh?" Kira growled, as he pulled the trigger, unleashing a blindingly bright blue and red beam blast and obliterating the enemy Gundam.

The door leading to the Excalibur's bridge opened with a hiss as Kira walked in a few minutes later, and immediately the amethyst-eyed man began to give out orders. "Hope, set a course for the Pacific Ocean, just off the coast of Washington state."

"Attention all hands," Lacus announced through the ship-wide PA system as Hope set a course that would put the Excalibur about half a mile from the coast of Washington. "The Excalibur will be commencing atmospheric reentry in two minutes, all hands are to standby in their designated units and to brace for turbulence, as well as possible combat." With that, the massive warship ignited its thrusters and dove into the Earth's atmosphere, the bow of the ship quickly beginning to glow with a fiery red light as it descended.

Everyone in the state of Washington, knew that no matter what happened to them, or how long they lived, they would never be able to get the scene unfolding high above them out of their memory. It would be permanently imprinted upon them in all its awesome scale and terrifying power, the sight of the Celestial Being warship Excalibur cleaving the clouds themselves apart, before gracefully landing in the ocean. What surprised the residents even more was the fact that, despite the massive size of the Excalibur, it didn't cause a tidal wave as they had all feared it would.

"Water landing successful." Hope announced, as the Excalibur came to a stop in the ocean a few short minutes later.


	12. A Moment of Peace

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 12**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

Many of the people who lived near the Pacific coastline had called the sudden appearance of the massive warship Excalibur an out-right invasion, but the crew of the ship hadn't really done anything, except make themselves at home.

Now, three days after its initial appearance, thousands of men and women from various backgrounds were swimming about in the warm waters immediately around the massive dagger-shaped ship, while others sunbathed on the decks or used the ship's mobile suits and mobile armors to go exploring underwater.

Two mobile suits, specifically; the Epyon and the Wing Gundam Zero, could be seen on the upper-most deck, keeping watch to protect the flocking crew members who drew leave.

Even wounded crewmembers could be seen getting some fresh air and sunshine. Names could be heard being shouted back and forth.

"Kira, stop!" Hope shouted, as the man in question suddenly leaped out of the water, landing on and dunking Asuka.

"AHH! KIRA!" Asuka yelled just before Kira landed on her, dunking her beneath the surface of the water.

"Yeah, Kira, cut it out!" Cagalli yelled, as Asuka resurfaced.

"Please, Kira, do stop!" Lacus yelled.

"Kira Yamato, stop that at…AHHH!" Murrue began, before she was suddenly pounced on, as Mayu attempted to dunk her under the surface of the water.

Kira and Lacus lunged at, and dunked Hope and Cagalli. Both women came up laughing, and while the others were distracted, Kira ducked back into the water, only to reappear a moment later, now holding the tops of Cagalli's, Hope's and Lacus's bikinis.

"I still don't see why those four women put up with your antics, Kira." Shinn said with an amused smile, as he idly floated on his back, looking up into the clear, blue sky.

"I don't know how I put up with Kira's antics myself." Mayu laughed as she swam away from Murrue, whom was now chasing her. As soon as those words had left Mayu's mouth, everyone froze.

"Kira...!" Shinn growled as he quickly reoriented himself in the water and began to menacingly approach the Gundam pilot in question.

"Shinn, I wasn't beng serious." Mayu quickly spoke up, hoping to defuse the possibe confrontation. "I was just kidding."

Shinn quickly turned to look at his younger sister, and after a moment of tense silence he smirked slightly. "Prove it."

"How the hell do you expect me to prove something like that?" Mayu asked.

"Well," Shinn explained, "If you are, in fact, not in a relationship with Kira, you probably haven't taken notice of the times that he and one of his four lovers seemingly vanish from the ship and are completely unreachable."

"So, what if I have?" Mayu countered. "Some of us actually pay attention to what goes on around them, Shinn."

"The only reason that anyone would even bother to take note of the times when Kira and his lovers vanish," Shinn smirked. "Is if they were in a relationship with him."

"Shinn, if I were in a relationship with anyone, no matter who it was, I would ask your opinion first." Mayu sighed.

"Even so," Shinn replied. "That doesn't mean you would follow the advice which I would give you."

"Well, of course not," Mayu scowled. "After all, you're not my father, nor can you tell me what to and not to do."

"True enough," Shinn agreed. "However, if you aren't in a relationship with Kira, I would like to know how your breast size seemed to increase overnight." He smirked, pulling his trump card.

"SHINN!" Mayu shrieked as a deep crimson hue stained her cheeks.

_'Fuck!'_ Hope thought to herself, just as Shinn had finished speaking. Considering that Shinn didn't usually pay extremely close attention to his surroundings unless he was on duty, she had been hoping that he wouldn't have noticed his sister's increased breast size.

"Well," Shinn smirked. "The only way that your breast size could have increased is if you had Kira, or one of his lovers do so."

"So what if I did?" Mayu yelled, fighting back her tears. "That doesn't mean that I'm in a relationship! And even if I am, why is it any of your business!"

"It is my business, because I am your brother, and I don't want to see you get hurt." Shinn replied, his voice still calm.

While Shinn was still calm, Mayu was not. "No!" She yelled, tears now slowly slipping from the corners of her eyes. "It's none of your business who I love or what I do with my own body! Even if I went so far as to fuck a live eel, it's none of your god damned business, Shinn!"

Shinn's eyes widened, Mayu never used such vulgar language unless she was extremely upset or stressed.

"I can't believe you, Shinn! My own brother gawking at my chest!" Mayu cried, before reaching out with her right hand and delivering a stinging slap to her brother's cheek.

"It's no worse than Kira's relationship with Cagalli." Shinn quickly shot back.

"Shut up, Shinn!" Cagalli and Kira yelled in unison, causing Shinn to turn towards the twins. Now that Shinn had been distracted, Hope swam over to Mayu.

"Mayu, I told you not to mention any of our secrets to anyone." Hope softly said as she gently wiped the younger girl's tears away. Mayu sniffled slightly as she nodded, clearly upset, but now also afraid that Hope might decide to kick her out of their privileged group.


	13. Mayu's Punishment

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 13**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

**Author's note: **I'd like to thank fellow member/reader **KAZEONI** for his help with this chapter. **KAZEONI** rightfully deserves credit for assisting me with this chapter, because while I had a severe case of writer's block, he basically wrote the second half of this chapter for me.

**Warning:** This chapter contains an extreme lemon, and is not suitable for anyone under the age of 18.

* * *

"Wha-what are you going to do to me, Hope?" Mayu asked, ten minutes later, as she reluctently stripped herself of her clothing. Hope, whom had also undressed, smiled sweetly as she took the younger woman's hand and led her into the Inner Sanctum.

"I have a few ideas." Hope replied, as she led the younger woman across the room and towards an elegant spiral staircase.

Mayu had only ever seen the first floor of the Inner Sanctum, so she was quite surprised when she reached the second level only to find a narrow hallway, highly similar to the one at the entrance of the Inner Sanctum. However, instead of being lit with red lights, this hallway was lit with blue lights. At the end of the hallway was a large door, and above the door was a lighted sign with the word "Aquarium" written on it.

Hope smiled slightly as she led the younger woman into the room, quickly leading her over to the huge swimming pool. Hope sighed softly as she slipped into the waist-high water, with Mayu hesitantly following a few seconds later.

As soon as Mayu entered the water, Hope turned to the younger woman and pushed her against the wall. To Mayu's surprise and horror, a pair of thick metal restraints emerged from the wall of the pool and snapped shut around her wrists. Hope smiled seductively as her right hand went down to Mayu's already dripping wet womanhood.

After fingering Mayu for nearly five minutes, Hope finally pulled away, causing the younger woman to whimper at the loss. Mayu's feeling of loss was quickly replaced, however, by one of fear when she saw a pair of ten-foot long, three-inch thick leeches swimming towards her.

Mayu screamed in fear as the leeches swam past Hope, quickly slithered up her torso, latched onto her breasts and began to hungerily suck on them.

"NOOO! Get them off me!" Mayu cried as the two large creatures eagerly fed off of her breasts. Hope was just standing there in the waist-high water, her arms folded under her large bust as she watched. The leeches coiled around Mayu's torso and most of her legs, but a fair portion of their bodies were still in the water.

"Mayu, I wouldn't struggle if I were you." Hope said in a calm voice. This was always one of Hope's better qualities; she rarely ever got angry outside of the battle zone. Even though this was Mayu's 'punishment' Hope wasn't truly angry with the young girl, just slightly annoyed that she had unintentionally let part of their secret slip out.

After a few short minutes, Mayu's breasts began to secrete a slow yet steady stream of milk and as soon as the young woman's breasts began to leak milk, the leeches began to suckle harder, causing her to scream again and to renew her struggles.

"Please, Hope." Mayu begged, with tears still sliding from the corners of her eyes, even as a slight blush tinted her cheeks while she continued to struggle against her restraints and free her breasts from the leeches eagerly suckling mouths. "Make them stop."

Hope simply smiled as she walked over to her young lover and whispered sweetly into her ear. "Mayu, I told you when you joined our group that you would be expected to do things like this." The amethyst-eyed beauty paused for a moment, but finally she finished speaking, disappointment obvious in her tone of voice. "But, if you want me to make the leeches stop, I could always kick you out of our group."

"N-no, please!" Mayu cried. "I don't want to leave you!"

"In that case; you need to get over your fear and let the leeches suck on those wonderful breasts of yours." Hope sweetly replied as she walked up to the younger woman. Mayu nodded in understading as Hope gently wrapped her arms around the younger woman's waist and whispered seductively into her ear. "The sooner you get over your fear, the sooner I'll be able to introduce your beautiful young body to some of the more extreme methods of pleasure which we utilize."

The leeches continued to hungerily suckle from Mayu's breasts for a total of twenty minutes before Hope got an idea; she was going to have the leeches try to mate with Mayu.

"Mayu, do you think that you're over your fear of leeches yet?" Hope quietly asked as she gently ran a hand through the younger woman's silky brunette tresses, her gentle voice finally breaking the twenty minutes of silence which had descencded on the room. Hope wasn't about to tell Mayu, but she didn't really want the younger woman to get over her fear, at least not her fear of the larger leeches, like the ones which were currently feeding from her breasts.

Mayu hesitated for a few moments, but finally she replied. "I think I'm over my fear now, Hope." Even though Mayu was still afraid of these larger leeches, she had to admit that the feeling of them sucking on her breasts did arouse her, despite her fear.

Hope smiled as she planted a heated kiss on Mayu's soft lips. It was then that Hope realized something.

"Mayu, when I told you that I could kick you out of our group you said; 'I don't want to leave YOU'." Hope said putting an emphasis on the word 'You'.

Mayu was about to reply when Hope placed her finger over her mouth, causing Mayu to stay quiet. "Tell me, Mayu." Hope whispered. "Did you mean the group, or was it that you don't want to leave me?" Hope asked as she ran her tongue over Mayu's jaw line and cheek causing her to moan.

"I..." Mayu started, her cheeks now a deep shade of pink. Hope smiled as she planted another kiss on Mayu's face, only this time on her cheek.

"Well Mayu, which is it?" Hope asked as she continued to plant small kisses all over Mayu's face, neck and shoulders.

"It-it's you Hope. I don't want to leave you!" Mayu said as Hope pulled away from her and looked deep into her dark violet eyes. Mayu suddenly felt as if a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders. "I love you, Hope." Mayu confessed and before she could say anything else, Hope had captured her lips again, this time slipping her tongue deeply into Mayu's mouth.

After about five minutes of intense French kissing, Hope pulled away from Mayu and tapped on the heads of the two leeches which were still sucking on her breasts. She then reached over and grabbed the tail ends of both leeches, looking at Mayu with a sly grin on her face. Mayu gasped as she felt the leeches wrap around her body even more, but then she noticed one of the leeches inching its tail towards her most sacred of places and she instantly began to panic.

"No! Hope make it stop! I don't want to lose it to this thing!" Hope suddenly remembered that Mayu was still a virgin.

_'Hmm, should I let the leech do it or should I take it from her? I've never had a virgin before.'_ Hope thought.

"Okay that settles it." Hope said as she pulled the tails of the leeches off Mayu, even though she still left most of their bodies coiled around the younger woman. Hope let the leeches wrap their tails around her waist and quickly guided them to her womanhood. The two invertebrates eagerly wiggled their tails around inside of Hope as a satisfied moan escaped from her throat.

"So Mayu, do you want me to be the one to take your virginity?" Hope asked, even as the two leeches continued to wiggle inside her. Mayu's face quickly went from a light pink hue to deep red, and she broke eye contact in an effort to hide her embarrassment.

"Well, Mayu? Give me an answer." Hope said as she let out another moan. Mayu opened her mouth to speak but no words would came out. Hope found the younger girl's state of intense embarrassment quite cute.

_'Now that I think about it; I've never had a virgin before. Oh, this is going to be so much fun!'_ Hope thought.

"I..." Mayu started. "Yes, I want you to."

"You want me to what, Mayu?" Hope asked, smirking as she teased the other girl.

Mayu blushed as even deeper shade of red. "I want you to take it." She squeaked her face hot with embarrassment.

"What do you want me to take, Mayu?" Hope said, still teasing her new lover. "Until you tell me what you want, I can't help you."

"My v-virginity." Mayu stuttered.

"What about it?" Hope playfully asked.

"I want you to take my virginity, Hope." Mayu finally said. "I want you to be my first."

Hope leaned into Mayu and planted a gentle kiss on her forehead. "Very well, Mayu." She said with a loving smile. "But first you need to finish your punishment." She added.

"I don't want to mate with leeches!" Mayu protested, but Hope simply placed both of her index fingers onto Mayu's temples and began to focus on what the two leeches where doing to her.

Hope let another moan slip from her lips as she seductively whispered. "Mayu, I'm going to show you what you are missing. For a moment, you will feel what I am feeling, then I will stop and I know that you will come around." With those words, Hope's finger tips started to glow as she began to transmit her feelings of pleasure into Mayu. Mayu's body convulsed at the sudden influx to her senses. Even though the leeches were inside Hope to Mayu it felt as if they were inside her.

"It-it feels strange, Hope." Mayu said as a small moan emanated from her lips.

"You're feeling what I feel, Mayu, and it feels good doesn't it?" Hope softly asked. Mayu could only moan in response. This went on for nearly five minutes, before Hope began to approach her limit, she wouldn't be able to maintain their link much longer.

Normally, Hope would have been able to out last Mayu for hours on end due to her many years of experience, but the two leeches wiggling around inside her coupled with Mayu's moans were about to drive her over the edge. Luckily for Hope, Mayu was also about to reach her own orgasm and that's when Hope decided to continue teasing her beautiful young lover. Just before Mayu reached her orgasm, Hope unexpectedly took her hands away from Mayu's head, breaking the link.

"Ah...Hope, please don't stop! Let me cum, please!" Hope simply smiled and gently pulled the tail ends of the two leeches from her dripping womanhood. Unknown to Mayu, Hope had indeed hit her orgasm, but she masked it well.

"Oh, does my sweet little Mayu need to cum?" Hope asked in a teasing manner.

"Hope, please don't torture me anymore, just let me cum! Please, I'm begging you!" Mayu desperately pleaded.

"Let the leeches mate with you and I will." Hope said. "If you like, I will make it so they won't break your hymen. Your virginity will remain intact for me." She offered.

"Fine, just let me cum!" Mayu begged. "I can't stand it anymore!"

Hope nodded and smiled as she guided the two leeches tails over to Mayu while they continued to feed on her breast milk. Hope smiled as she placed her left hand just above Mayu's clitoris.

"If they go too deep, I will pull them out." Hope explained, but in truth she had used her abilities to in effect make Mayu's hymen temporarily disappear so the leeches could mate with her but leave her virginity intact for Hope to take care of later. Mayu moaned again as the leeches slithered into her.

"Does it feel good, Mayu?" Hope asked while she rubbed her body against Mayu's own, with the leeches sandwiched between. "Be honest now and I might give you a treat when we are done."

"It...It feels good...it feels so good." Mayu breathed as she felt her previously denied orgasm near. Two short minutes later, Mayu's orgasm hit and the two leeches released into her at the same moment. Having expended most of her energy, Mayu's body went limp, the two shackles being the only things keeping her from falling into the water, and as if on command the two leeches let go of Mayu's breasts, uncoiled themselves from her body and swam away.

As the creatures swam away, Hope clicked a switch on the wall, releasing Mayu's body from her restraints. She immediately caught the younger girl and held her close for a moment.

"Good job, Mayu, you made it through the punishment." Hope said as she hugged her new lover. "But your hair is a mess, we need to clean it up." She added as she noticed that Mayu's brunette locks were covered in sweat as well as a small amount of slime from the leeches.

"Can we shower together?" Mayu asked as she began to regain her composure.

"As much fun as that would be, I have something even better in mind, please come with me." Hope answered as she took Mayu's hand into her own and led the young woman back towards the elevator.


	14. New Desires

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 14**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

When the two woman reached the fourth level, they once again found a narrow hallway, however unlike the other three, instead of being lit with red or blue lights, this hallway was lit with alternating pink and green lights. At the end of the hallway was a large door, and above the door was a lighted sign with the word "Salon" written on it.

Mayu's eyes widened as the doors slid open to reveal a full-size salon, complete with five salon chairs, with mirrors, counters, any and all necessary combs, brushes, sprays, even three wet/dry shop vacuums and a bathtub/shower where hair could be washed and shampooed.

"Wow." Mayu breathed, clearly in awe.

"Girls with long hair is one of Kira's more prominent fetishes." Hope shrugged as she gently tugged on Mayu's arm and led her into the salon. "That's exactly why the four of us tend to keep our hair at or below waist length." Hope paused as she stopped at the first chair and gently pushed Mayu down into the chair, then she smiled. "And I certianly can't lie, I also find women with longer hair more attractive." As Mayu patiently sat in the salon chair Hope giggled. "Besides, it's as Kira says; there's absolutely no such thing as hair that is too long, actually the longer the better."

Mayu blushed slightly as Hope walked to the counter in front of the chair in which she was seated and picked up a hairbrush. The amethyst-eyed beauty smiled as she then walked behind Mayu, quickly gathering her hair into a ponytail and gently tugging on it, since it had been caught between the back of the chair and Mayu's body. Hope simply smiled as she began to affectionetly run the brush through Mayu's beautiful brunette locks.

"So, what is the longest your hair has ever been, Hope?" Mayu asked, a relaxed sigh escaping her lips as Hope continued to lovingly run the brush through her hair.

"You probably wouldn't believe me if I told you." Hope answered, as a slight blush tinted her cheeks.

"Please tell me." Mayu begged, as she looked into the large mirror in front of her, looking directly into the reflection of Hope's eyes.

"Maybe." Hope seductively grinned, as she continued to brush Mayu's hair. "If you continue to be a good girl and behave yourself."

"What would you do if I decide to misbehave?" Mayu hesitantly asked.

"I told you earlier; if you misbehave, I'll give you to Cagalli and Lacus." Hope sweetly smiled. "I'm sure that they would love the opportunity to have their way with you."

Mayu allowed a slight whimper to escape her lips. About twelve hours earlier, Mayu had been searching the private computer network which only Kira and his lovers had access to, and she soon stumbled onto a video of Cagalli and Lacus.

The video had started out like any other erotic video, but after less than five minutes, Cagalli found herself strapped to a table with a circular saw slowly inching it's way towards her dripping wet entrance. Mayu wanted to turn away or to turn the video off, but to her horror, she was inexplicably drawn to the video, actually finding herself becoming aroused as the spinning blade dug into Cagalli's womanhood, sending a fountian of crimson blood shooting into the air.

Mayu shivered at the memory, but she also found herself becoming slightly aroused by it as well.

"Mayu, earlier you asked me about the length of my hair at it's longest." Hope smiled as she continued to affectionatly brush the younger woman's hair.

"Yea, I did." Mayu replied, blushing slightly. "What about it?"

"There's no reason to get snippy, young lady." Hope scolded, the tone in her voice instantly letting Mayu know that her lover was still slightly upset with her. "Anyway, in answer to your earlier question; the longest my hair has ever been was one light-year in length, or nearly six trillion miles."

"Wha-what?" Mayu asked, disbelief obvious in her voice. "H-how could you possibly make your hair that long?"

"You keep forgetting, Mayu." Hope giggled. "We are gods, and we can do anything we want."

"Is that how Cagalli can survive having a circular saw slice into her vagina with no visual scarring or signs of injury afterwards?" Mayu hesitantly asked, even as Hope continued to brush her hair.

"Exactly." Hope quietly answered before setting the hairbrush down and moving her hands down to Mayu's stomach and over her waist. "I just love touching you, Mayu. You're so soft and warm," Hope whispered into the younger woman's ear, "how could I not want to touch you?"

Mayu blushed at the praise, a shiver going through her body as Hope guided her hands over her skin. Hope had held the younger woman like this many times before while whispering in her ear, but never while sitting in front of a mirror so that she could see the appreciation in Hope's eyes and follow their path over her body. Mayu watched Hope's eyes closely, the way they moved and then lingered in one place, a look of concentration on her face as she seemed to be memorizing every curve before moving on to the next feature. She continued to blush and to get more excited as Hope's hands moved up to cup her breasts.

"And your breasts." Hope purred. "They're perfect."

"I have you to thank for my perfect breasts, Hope." Mayu happily sighed, as she stared into the mirror and by extention, into the eyes of her beautiful lover. Hope simply watched Mayu as she started to rub her clit, playing with the wet folds of her pussy.

Mayu spread her legs, rubbing her clit with one hand and spreading the lips of her pussy with the other, as her juices began dripping from her womanhood and onto the chair.

Hope smiled as she gently grabbed Mayu's wrists and placed them on the armsrests of the chair, and Mayu squeaked in surprise as a pair of thck metal restraints snapped shut around wrists when Hope placed them on the armrests.

Now that the younger woman was restrained, Hope walked back to the counter in front of the salon chair in which Mayu was seated and once again picked up the hairbrush. After picking up the brush, Hope opened one of the cabinets underneath the counter and produced a vacuum cleaner hose which was connected to a central vacuum system within the ship.

Mayu watched in slight confusion as Hope quickly attached the hairbrush to the end of the hose. Hope simply smiled as she once again walked behind Mayu and resumed brushing her beautiful brunette tresses. Mayu quietly gasped in surprise as she felt her hair being gently sucked into the vacuum hose as Hope continued to lovingly brush her hair.

After affectionetly brushing Mayu's hair for nearly five minutes, Hope set the brush back down on the counter, smiling sweetly as she freed the younger woman from her restraints, gently pulled her onto her feet and then led her over to the shower.

Without saying anything, Hope released the shower head from the clip that held it high up on the wall and let it rest on the floor of the tub, she then handed Mayu a bottle of shampoo and took two towels from a shelf over the toilet and dropped them, still folded, on the floor at the side of the tub, finally she instructed Mayu to kneel on the towels.

It took only a moment to adjust the water from the spray hose, more than long enough for Mayu to kneel on the towels and get comfortable. Hope smiled as she gathered Mayu's hair and swept it over her head, Mayu instantly yielded to her lover's direction without the slightest resistance. Hope's fingers stroked and smoothed Mayu's hair as the water sprayed down over her head.

Hope smiled as he then began to apply the shampoo to Mayu's hair, lifting the overhang and providing a little pocket in her hair to apply the shampoo. Hope then lifted the overhang and massaged the younger woman's gorgeous waist-length hair into a thick lather.

A long, sustained sigh slipped pleasantly from Mayu's throat as Hope began to rinse the lather from her head a few minutes later. The suds quickly slid from Mayu's hair and flowed into the drain.

Hope's fingers continued to gently probe and massage the younger woman's hair until she was certain that not a single bubble had escaped the spray, then she leaned over Mayu and whispered softly into her ear. "Would you please move back to the salon chair so I can dry this beautiful hair of yours, Mayu?"

Mayu giggled slightly as she moved her hair, which was still dripping with water, behind her back as she rose to her feet, then she smiled as she walked back over to the salon chair and once again sat down.

Hope smiled as she walked to the counter, picked up the hairbrush and then walked behind Mayu. The younger woman sighed happily as Hope once again began to lovingly run the brush through her hair, as the gentle suction from the vacuum steadily drew the excess water from her beautiful brunette tresses. Hope continued to brush Mayu's hair for nearly five minutes, only stopping when the young woman's hair was completely dry.

Mayu allowed a soft sigh to escape her lips as she moved to stand up, but she quickly found that Hope had once agan restrained her to the chair. Mayu glanced over her right shoulder just in time to see Hope pull the brush off the end of the hose and replace it with a different attachment.

The attachment itself appeared to be nothing more than a normal hose, about a meter long, with a large funnel at the end of the hose itself. The sides and back of the funnel were flared outward, in addition there were also what appeared to be chin straps attached to the sides of the funnel. The inside, of the hose itself, however, looked like someone had taken a car wash, scaled it down and put it inside of the vacuum cleaner hose.

First, the hair was sucked into the hose where it was covered with suds, and then throughly rinsed, after the hair had been rinsed, it was then sucked towards multiple spinning brushes near the end of the attachment, and finally, after the hair had been brushed, it came out the other side, longer and clean as it could be before then being sucked into the vacuum's collection bin, or alternitively, the black hole hidden underneath the collection bin.

Unknown to Mayu, there was a small, yet extremely powerful black hole hidden within the vacuum cleaner. This black hole, unlike most others in the universe, wasn't a dead end, as it was connected to a white hole in deep space, in addition, anything that went through this black hole came out at the other end fully intact.

Normally, close proximity to such a powerful gravitational field would be instantly fatal, however, the vacuum cleaner had been constructed with special gravity resistent materials, which not only contained the black hole, but they also greatly reduced the effects of the immense gravity outside of the machine. When not in use, the black hole was hidden directly underneath the collection bin by a simple sliding panel which was controlled by a small switch on the wall between the first two mirrors.

Mayu let a relaxed sigh escape her lips as the gentle suction of the vacuum continued to simultaniously massage her scalp while gently tugging on her hair. After a few moments, Hope let out a quiet giggle when she noticed that Mayu's beautiful brunette tresses were slowly yet steadily growing longer.

Mayu felt her body relax even more while the vacuum continued its work. She had never been pampered like this in her life and she loved every moment of it.

After about five minutes, Hope decided that she was tired of just standing around watching her lover and she walked around in front of the chair before then planting a loving kiss on Mayu's lips.

Mayu was now in such a relaxed state that she had begun to doze off. Hope smiled when she saw that her young lover had fallen into a light sleep, but she didn't hesitate as she planted a light kiss on Mayu's lips before then walking over to turn off the vacuum cleaner. Smiling, Hope freed Mayu from the vacuum, gathered up her soft brunette locks and began to wrap herself in them.

_'Ah it's so soft.'_ She thought as she sat down in the chair next to Mayu's. Hope pressed the switch to recline her chair and then began to curl Mayu's silken tresses tighter around her voluptuous body.

Hope found a handful of the ends of Mayu's hair and began tickling her clit with them, all the while breathing in the clean scent from the shampoo. After a few moments of playing with herself, Hope couldn't stand it any longer; she had to make Mayu hers. She righted the chair and while still wrapped in her silken strands she walked over to Mayu who was starting to stir.

"Mayu..." Hope whispered in her ear. "Wake up, lover." Mayu's eyes gently fluttered open and she smiled as she saw her lover's face come into focus. She then saw what Hope was wrapped up in.

"Hope, what is that?" Mayu asked.

"Take a close look." Hope replied. Mayu did so and it quickly dawned on her.

"That's my hair." She said.

Mayu was going to ask how that happened but she decided not to. Hope dropped her arms letting the thick brown locks gracefully slide from her body. She then offered her hand to Mayu.

"Shall we head for the bedroom, my sweet?" Hope asked. Mayu blushed but smiled and stood up.

"Yes, let's." Mayu answered, and before leaving the salon, Hope quickly shortened Mayu's hair with some of her abilities, shortening the young woman's hair just enough so it wouldn't get caught in the elevator.


	15. Desires Fulfilled

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 15**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

**Author's note: **I'd like to thank fellow member/reader **KAZEONI** for his help with this chapter. **KAZEONI** rightfully deserves credit for assisting me with this chapter.

**Warning:** This chapter contains an extreme lemon, and is not suitable for anyone under the age of 18.

* * *

A few moments later, Mayu and Hope got off the second elevator that moved through the Inner Sanctum and the two young women entered into the large bedroom. Mayu was in front of Hope with her back facing her. Hope pulled Mayu into a hug her breasts pressed up against Mayu's back with her hand wrapped around her lover's body.

"Mayu, I love you so much." Hope said, causing Mayu to let out a happy sigh as she felt Hope run her palms over her smooth white skin. Mayu crocked her head to one side as Hope began to plant light kisses on her exposed neck and shoulder.

"I-I love you too Hope, more than any other." Mayu breathed.

"What happened to Kira, I thought you liked him." Hope inquired.

"That was before I found you. I found someone I truly loved in you. In truth I have never felt right falling in love with guys and now I know why." Mayu replied as she spun around to face Hope. "I was just waiting for you to find me."

A single tear of joy slipped from Hope's eye. Mayu then moved in and kissed her now official lover on the lips. The kiss started out light, but quickly increased in heat and passion. Hope moved her hands down Mayu's back before cupping her soft, supple buttocks and gently squeezing them. Mayu moaned lightly into the kiss as Hope squeezed her buttocks again.

They finally broke their heated kiss for air and Hope looked deeply into Mayu's beautiful eyes. Dark violet met deep amethyst, and Hope could see that Mayu's eyes were glazed over with heated lust.

Hope then decided to return Mayu's hair to it previous length of three miles before slowly pushing her to the bed. Mayu walked backwards until she hit the edge of the bed and Hope gently laid her down while climbing over top of her.

Once again, Hope captured Mayu's lips in another heated kiss, slipping her tongue past Mayu's lips while gently caressing her body.

"Hope..." Mayu breathed in between kisses.

"Don't worry Mayu, I'll take care of everything." Hope said as she pulled away from their make out session.

Hope began to move the tip of her tongue down Mayu's body, lightly touching her jaw down past her neck to the valley of her breasts. Hope gave both of Mayu's breasts a light squeeze as a small moan came from her lover's lips, while a small amount of milk sprayed from her nipples. Hope then began moving lower, first dipping her tongue into Mayu's navel. Hope could hear Mayu panting in anticipation as she moved down to her untouched womanhood.

This was not the first time the two lovers had slept together, but this was the first time that Hope was going to eat out her lover. Without any warning Hope placed her tongue flat against Mayu's wet slit and gave her a good lick.

"H-Ho-Hope, don't stop." Mayu moaned, even as Hope continued her oral assault. Mayu's moans filled the room as her body squirmed in pleasure while Hope kept going.

"Your nectar is so sweet, Mayu." Hope purred, as she briefly pulled away.

"No, don't say that!" Mayu cried. "You're embarrassing me!" Hope simply giggled, she found Mayu's embarrassment to be very cute.

"Well then, let's try this." Hope said as she lowered her face back in between Mayu's thighs. Hope giggled softly before lightly running her tongue over Mayu's clit and then sticking two fingers into her soaked womanhood. This was enough to push Mayu over the edge and the young woman moaned loudly as the first orgasm of the night rocked her body.

Hope removed her fingers from Mayu's wet slit and crawled back up the bed and gazed at the erotic sight beneath her. A naked, panting, highly aroused Mayu Asuka in the throes of post-orgasm.

Hope smiled as she brought her fingers, which were still coated in Mayu's honey, to her mouth and licked them clean. With her eyes half-lidded, Mayu looked up at her new lover, and Hope noticed a single tear slip from Mayu's eye and fall to the sheets.

"What's wrong, Mayu?" She asked.

"Too short..." Mayu choked out.

"What?" Hope asked.

"Life is too short. You're a goddess and I'm a human." Mayu said as tears began to stream from her eyes. Hope quickly sat her up and pulled the young woman into a tight embrace.

"Then join me Mayu." Hope said as she ran one of her hands through Mayu's long brunette tresses while the other gently moved over her soft back.

"What?" Mayu asked, not understanding Hope's statement.

"Join me. Become like me. Stay with me." Hope purred as she loosened her hold on Mayu and pulled her into a long loving kiss. The kiss went on until Mayu needed to break for air.

"Hope..." She breathed. "Please, make love to me." Hope nodded as she wiped the tears from Mayu's eyes and began to get off the bed.

"Wait here, lover. I have to get something first." She said with a loving tone, and with that Hope vanished into the closet.

_'Now where did I put the new one that I made.'_ She thought as she began to look through the closet. After a few moments of looking around she finally found the box she had been searching for. Hope smiled as she opened the box and pulled what she needed from it.

It was a new version of the same strap-on that Lacus had used on Cagalli. Only this one was designed by Hope herself, and was far more advanced. Unlike the older strap-on this one had the feel of soft skin for the one receiving it. It also had touch sensors beneath the silicon skin that would allow the wearer to feel the sensations that one would feel with the real thing. All while still possessing the ability to have two women conceive a child.

Hope smiled as she slowly slid one end of the dildo into her pink slit. Even now, over two thousand years later, it still looked as delicate and pure as it was the day she and Kira first slept with each other. Mayu gasped as she saw her new lover exit the closet with her new faux appendage but at the same time she felt heat building between her legs.

Mayu watched as Hope slowly walked back to the bed, her hips swaying ever so slightly with each step she took. Within moments, Hope had returned to the bed and was once again atop Mayu, sharing another searing kiss before pulling away and positioning herself at Mayu's dripping womanhood.

"Are you ready, Mayu?" Hope asked as she looked deep into her eyes. "This will hurt for a moment but just bare with me, for I will take you on journey which you will never forget." Hope said as she pressed the end of the strap-on lightly against Mayu's delicate folds.

Mayu could only nod in response, Hope then began to move slowly into Mayu's womanhood until she hit her hymen. She took one last look at Mayu, who nodded again; telling Hope that she was free to continue.

Hope pressed against her lover's barrier, she could feel Mayu's muscles tighten as a small whimper escaped her lips. Finally, the thin membrane gave way and Mayu let out a slight hiss of pain. Hope stopped moving and snaked her arms beneath Mayu's back and held her as close as their bodies would allow.

"It-it hurts..." Mayu whimpered.

"Do you want me to stop? I don't want to hurt you." Hope said.

"No, don't stop, please." Mayu said, loosening her grip on Hope's shoulders as she got used to the new girth inside her. Hope remained unmoving for another few seconds, the touch sensors in the "skin" of the strap-on sending signals to her brain, giving her the feeling of really being inside Mayu.

_'She feels so good. She's so soft and warm.'_ Hope thought before she finally lifted herself up, supporting her upper body with her arms as she began to thrust into her beautiful young lover.

Mayu's back arched as her lustful moans began to fill the bedroom.

"H-Ho-Hope..." Mayu breathed between moans. "It feels...so good."

"You're so tight, Mayu." Hope moaned. As they continued to make love, Mayu was in a state of intense euphoria, even as Hope changed positions with out breaking their link.

Hope was now sitting up on her knees with Mayu's legs draped over her arms. Hope looked down at her young lover, her back was arched, her head thrown back, mouth open in a soundless scream and her eyes were shut. Hope also loved to watch Mayu's enhanced bust sway with every thrust she made. It wasn't long before Mayu began to feel another orgasm approaching.

"Hope...I'm...AH!" Mayu shrieked as her orgasm hit like a tsunami.

"M-Mayu I'm...HMMM!" Within mere seconds, Hope also hit her first orgasm of the night. Just like it was designed, the strap-on converted her vaginal honey into semen and sent it deep into Mayu's waiting womb. Hope fell back on top of Mayu, enjoying the afterglow of her first orgasm of the night.

"More..." Mayu panted. "I want more."

"Really?" Hope asked with a smirk as she pulled out of Mayu's dripping entrance, causing the young woman to whine, since she thought that Hope was finished with her.

"Please, Hope, don't stop!" Mayu begged.

"You want more, Mayu?" Hope asked.

"Y-yes, I do." Mayu replied and Hope smirked again.

"Well then, I'll just lean back and you can do it yourself." Hope said with a playful tone, causing Mayu's face to instantly turn a deep shade of red as she looked at Hope, who was now laying on her back with her hands behind her head and her strap-on standing straight up at full attention.

"Ride me, Mayu." Hope said as she looked into her lover's eyes. Mayu didn't need to be told twice. Swinging her left leg over Hope's body, while supporting herself with her knees, she hovered over the strap-on. Mayu looked down at Hope, unsure of what to do next. Hope freed her hands from behind her head brought them up and gently ran her finger tips over Mayu's breasts, past her erect nipples, down her sides before stopping at her hips.

"Relax, Mayu, just ease yourself down." Hope said as she lightly pressed on the younger woman's hips. Mayu got the idea and began to slowly sink down onto the faux shaft. She gasped as the tip made contact with her sensitive folds. Mayu moaned as she finally went all the way down.

"Wow, Mayu, I'm impressed. Even though this is your first time you took me all the way in." Hope said, blushing as she felt the tight confines of Mayu's wet womanhood from the touch pads inside the strap-on.

_'She's tight.'_ Hope thought _'If I'm not careful she could easily become the dominant one here...in that case...'_

Suddenly, without any warning, Hope thrust her hips skyward sending her toy even deeper into Mayu's love canal, lifting her slightly off the bed.

"AHH!" Mayu moaned loudly as she began to move up and down, meeting Hope's bucking hips. After a few moments, Hope stopped her movement but Mayu kept going her hips seemingly moving on their own.

Hope relished the sight before her. Mayu Asuka was on top of her, completely naked, riding her like a prized racing horse. Her head was canted to one side, eyes shut, lips slightly parted as small gasps and moans slipped from her throat. Suddenly, as though it had a mind of it's own, Hope's left hand planted a light smack on Mayu's right butt cheek.

"AH...Do that again." She moaned while massaging her own breasts, causing milk to drip from them. Hope obliged with another smack, this time to her left cheek, causing Mayu to moan even louder.

Hope resumed bucking her hips once she saw that Mayu was slowing down.

_'She must be getting tired. Well, I really can't blame her.'_ Hope thought as she sat up while still hammering away at her lover. Mayu's half lidded eyes met Hope's own; pure violet meeting deep amethyst.

The two women shared a brief kiss before Hope pulled away and began running her tongue down Mayu's neck past the swell of her breasts until finally, she latched her mouth onto Mayu's left nipple. Hope began to skillfully apply light suction as Mayu's milk began to seep from her breast, and the young woman responded by wrapping her arms around Hope's head, trying to get more pleasure from her lover.

"Mmm...Mayu, your milk is delicious." Hope gasped before switching to Mayu's other breast. Hope loved the unique flavor of her lover's milk.

_'Her milk is so sweet.'_ Hope thought as she continued to suckle, while gently pushing Mayu onto her back without pulling out or leaving her breast. Once Mayu was on lying on her back, Hope began to thrust harder.

Hope's breast feeding combined with the intense pounding she was giving, was enough to send Mayu over the edge again. Mayu let out a blissful scream as her second orgasm of the night hit her like a tsunami. Hope sighed in contentment, she knew that by now Mayu's body was beginning to change and become more like her own.

"Who would have guessed that you would have such a powerful sex drive." Hope said as she pulled out of Mayu's womanhood.

"Hope..." Mayu breathed. "I'm not done."

"Neither am I, lover." Hope grinned.

Mayu smiled as she tried to sit up, but she quickly noticed that her hair felt slightly heavier. "Why does my hair feel so heavy?" The young woman asked, casuing Hope to smile.

"You grew it out even more." Hope explained, even as she looked at the new length of Mayu's silky tresses. "It looks like you added about three more miles to it."

"You mean...like you and the other girls?" Mayu asked.

"That's right." Hope smiled. "So, what do you think that means?"

Mayu thought for a moment before it dawned on her. "I...am I'm i-immortal now?" She asked with baited breath.

"That, and so much more." Hope said. "Happy re-birth Mayu."

Mayu threw herself at Hope, pushing them back onto the bed.

"Let me pleasure you now, Hope." Mayu happily said.

Hope smiled at the idea of Mayu pleasing her, before remembering something that she had always wanted to try. She reached over to the lowest drawer on one of the nightstands and pulled out what looked like a strapless bra.

"Put this on." Hope said as she offered it to Mayu, who accepted the bra and put it on.

"What's this for?" Mayu asked with a slight giggle.

"All in due time, my dear. All in due time." Hope smiled before she began to remove the strap-on from her wet slit.

"You want to pleasure me?" Hope asked in a playful tone, and before Mayu could answer, Hope held the strap-on to Mayu's face with the end that was inside Hope facing the young beauty.

"Clean it off first." Hope said as Mayu took the toy and began to lick it like a lollipop.

Hope could tell that Mayu had become even more aroused after she had finished licking the strap-on clean.

"Good, now put it on." Hope ordered with a smile. Mayu blushed as she slid the wearers end into her tight pink slit and adjusted the straps. Once she had finished, Hope was instantly upon her, once more locked in a heated and lustful kiss. While Hope was still kissing her, she lightly touched the cups of the bra that Mayu now wore, and within seconds Mayu gasped as she felt a light pulling sensation directly over her nipples.

"What's...happening?" She breathed once Hope had pulled away from their kiss.

Hope simply smiled "Your breast milk was so good, I thought I'd save some for later."

"You're...milking me?" Mayu breathed, the suction from the bra making it hard for her to form complete sentences. "How?"

"Seeing as you are now immortal like me and the others, your body is much tougher than most. Inside that bra are two small gravitational singularities, otherwise known as black holes." Hope explained. "And what's happening is they are siphoning milk from your breasts and placing it in a small collection tank."

Hope smiled sweetly as she laid Mayu back on the bed and positioned herself over the strap-on. "You should know Mayu, this is no ordinary strap-on. This strap-on has touch sensors embedded in it, and you will feel everything that I felt when I was inside you."

To prove her point, Hope took the tip of the toy into her hand and slowly ran it along the length of her womanhood causing Mayu to gasp. "Now Mayu..." Hope seductively whispered. "I will show you the pleasures of a man."

Without another word, Hope quickly sank down on to Mayu, her tight slit engulfing the false manhood in one erotic motion. Mayu threw her head back and moaned loudly as the touch pads in the strap-on sent signals of pure ecstasy to her brain.

"Is this...what Kira feels?" Mayu asked breathlessly. Hope grinned as she lifted herself up until only the tip was still wrapped in her pink folds.

"Yes, Mayu this and so much more." Hope said as she again slammed down on her lover, this time causing Mayu's back to arch as her hands clenched the sheets. Hope began a steady rhythm as she rode Mayu. Hope took both of Mayu's hands and placed them over her breasts. Mayu wasted no time in squeezing the two soft swells of flesh.

After a few moments, Mayu could feel a warm liquid start to run down her hands, she lazily opened her eyes and saw that Hope's breasts were beginning to lactate from the fondling. Mayu licked her lips as she tried to sit up, trying to reach her prize. But the constant bucking of Hope's hips, combined with the suction of the two black holes inside the bra made it almost impossible for her to get up. Hope looked down at her young lover and smirked noticing what the younger girl wanted.

"What's wrong Mayu, you want some?" Hope asked teasingly as she squeezed her breasts, causing milk to spray forth and sprinkle over Mayu's stomach, breasts and face.

"Stop teasing me!" Mayu said as she once again tried to sit up but couldn't.

"So, Mayu, how do my insides feel?" Hope asked in a sexy tone.

"It-it feels so good. It's so soft and warm and..." Mayu let out another loud moan as Hope moved in a new pace. "It's...so tight." She breathed as Hope's soft vaginal flesh tightened over the strap-on. Hope moaned again as she tried something new by slowly lifting herself up off of Mayu then slamming down on her as hard as she could. She looked down at her lover's breasts, which were still being milked by the bra and decided that she had to have them again. Even though Mayu had already been milked for several minutes, her breasts showed no signs of running out of milk. Any normal woman would have run dry long ago but one of the perks of her newfound immortality was a limitless supply of breast milk and no risks of pain afterwards.

"That should be plenty now." Hope said, and before Mayu could ask, Hope had leaned down without breaking her rhythm and yanked the bra off with her teeth and sent it flying across the bedroom, causing the black holes within to instantly vanish. Hope then latched onto Mayu's right breast and eagerly suckled, while massaging her left breast. Hope had also noticed that Mayu's breathing had sped up and that her moans had increased in frequency as well, she was on the verge of orgasm.

"Ho-Hope...I-I feel something inside..." She said between moans.

"Let it come, Mayu your about to have your first male orgasm."

Moments later, Mayu's hips involuntarily bucked skyward, burying the strap-on deep within Hope's folds.

Mayu let out a euphoric scream as she came hard inside her lover, this was just enough to bring about Hope's own climax as she soon followed suit. Mayu slumped down on the bed awash in the throes of the afterglow of her latest orgasm.

She had lost count of how many she had already climaxed and she was astounded that she had lasted so long. She moaned lightly as Hope slowly got off of her, the touch pads still sending signals to her brain. Hope removed the strap-on from Mayu's folds and put it aside before then then laying down and pulling Mayu on top of her. Mayu snuggled up close to Hope and almost on reflex, moved towards her breasts.

"Hope..." Mayu said lightly.

"Hmm?" Hope asked as she began running her fingers through Mayu's silky tresses.

"I'm hungry." Mayu said.

Hope smiled as she moved her arms to give Mayu better access to her breasts. "Then feed, Mayu. You can have as much as you like."

With a contented sigh, Mayu snuggled up close to Hope, took her right nipple into her mouth and began to suckle like a famished infant. Hope smiled as she continued to run her hands through Mayu's soft brunette tresses, which covered them both like a silk sheet.

Hope rested her head on one of the many soft pillows, closed her eyes and relaxed while Mayu took her fill. Hope's mind began to wander while Mayu continued feeding. She began thinking about her long life all the way back to her time as Kira Hibiki. Back to when she was first created; born from a test tube, forced to endure training so intense that it would have made even the most hardened spec ops troopers cry. How she had thought that all there was in her life was hate until she met Kira and his band of fighters. And after defecting from her handlers, fighting and dying to end war; she remembered her time in heaven and her time meeting the archangels Michael and Gabriel before she and the others where asked by God himself to return to the mortal world and put an end to his children's pointless fighting. Hope's thoughts then turned to Mayu whom was still feeding from her breast, and she smiled as she opened her eyes and watched her young lover.

_'She really is so adorable.'_ Hope thought, as she turned her head to the side. It was then that she looked at her left hand, more specifically her left ring finger. She ran her thumb gently over the simple gold band that signified both her marriage and acted as an inhibiter for her more extreme abilities.

_'I've always been the odd one out.'_ Hope thought, as she remembered one of the many times that she and the others would all get together for a night of passion. In the end, she would almost always either be left out in some way or have to be part of a threesome even if she wasn't in the mood for one.

_'Kira is mostly with Murrue, Cagalli is almost always with Lacus. What about me?'_ She thought as a single tear slipped from her eye. Hope looked back at Mayu whom had now switched over to her left breast and continued to feed, and Hope giggled softly as she watched Mayu.

_'Maybe I should start wearing nursing bras and shirts for her underneath my uniform jacket.'_ Hope thought, even as she realized how much she had fallen for Mayu. She was originally just going to see if Mayu could handle all the fetishes and fantasies without becoming traumatized and then let her be with Kira. But now, Hope wanted Mayu for herself, and she wanted to make it official.


	16. A New Lover

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 16**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

**Warning:** This chapter contains an extreme lemon, and is not suitable for anyone under the age of 18.

* * *

"Mayu, may I talk to you for a moment?" Hope asked, causing Mayu to stop feeding and to look up at her. Hope could tell that her young lover was still hungry and wanted to continue feeding. "I just want to talk to you about something, then you can go right back and suckle to your heart's content." Hope said with a smile. Mayu returned the smile and sat up, with Hope quickly following suit. Hope took a deep breath and looked deeply into Mayu's beautiful eyes. "Mayu, I want you to be happy with your new found life and I was hoping that you would include me in that happiness." Hope said, causing Mayu to tilt her head in slight confusion.

"What are you talking about, Hope?" Mayu asked, even as Hope reached over to her left ring finger and pulled at the gold ring. The ring took on the properties of a liquid-like state and a second ring quickly took shape from the first before then returning to its original solid state.

Hope took the new ring in her hand and held it up in front of Mayu. "Mayu Asuka. Will you marry me? Will you be with me for eternity?" Mayu felt her heart swell at Hope's proposal and within seconds, the younger woman had wrapped her arms around tightly around Hope.

"Yes! Of course I will." Mayu said tearfully. Hope returned her hug as silent tears of pure joy slid from her eyes as she held her new fiancé in a tight embrace.

After several minutes, the two lovers loosened their grip on each other and Hope lay back down on the bed.

"Now, as I promised, you can feed to your heart's content." Hope said, as a thin stream of milk continued to slowly seep from her breasts.

Mayu quickly moved back down to her prize, and Hope moaned softly as her young lover ran the tip of her tongue over the hard pink nub before once again taking it into her mouth and continuing her favorite activity.

"Such a good girl." Hope cooed, as she gently ran her fingers through Mayu's long silken tresses, before planting a light kiss on the top of her head.

Mayu continued to feed for over an hour while Hope relaxed, enjoying the feeling of feeding her lover. Hope had always felt more maternal then most of the other girls in the harem. Hope giggled slightly as Mayu's tongue traced over a certain spot on her breast.

"I think I've found your fetish, Mayu." Hope said, when Mayu started to move towards Hope's other breast.

"I was never breastfed by my mother when I was a baby." Mayu explained, blushing slightly.

"Well, whenever you get the need, just let me know." Hope smiled, while continuing to stroke her lover's hair. Before long, Hope noticed that Mayu's hair was starting to stick to her hands.

"Mayu, why don't we go take a shower?" Hope asked. "We're all sweaty."

Mayu nodded, smiling as she gave Hope a light peck on the cheek before getting off the bed. Hope helped Mayu gather up her long hair as they went back to the elevator and headed towards the Salon. While riding the elevator Hope got a telepathic message from Lacus.

_'Having fun, Hope?'_ Lacus asked telepathically.

_'You have no idea.'_ Hope answered. Thankfully Mayu still hadn't figured out how to tune in on the telepathic conversation between the other girls.

_'Oh, I think I do.'_ Lacus mused. _'She seems to have quite the appetite.'_

Hope mentally blushed. _'Were you peeking through my eyes again?'_ She asked.

_'Only at the end.'_ Lacus admitted.

_'I wish you would stop that.'_ Hope scolded, even as she mentally sighed. _'Anyway, I have an idea. Would you bring the other girls below in a few minutes?'_

_'What for?'_ Lacus asked.

_'Mayu and I are engaged.'_ Hope mentally admitted.

_'Oh, Good for you! Congratulations!'_ Lacus squealed.

_'Thanks, I want her to meet Yumi.'_ Hope explained.

_'We'll be there in thirty minutes.'_ Lacus said, the two women stopping their mental conversation as the elevator stopped on the salon floor.

"Now into the shower we go." Hope said, with a slight sing-song tone in her voice, as she shuffled Mayu in to the large stall.

Even though there was a shower on the main housing deck of the Inner Sanctum, the one on the salon deck was much, much larger. The shower on the salon deck had been designed with the idea of having up to five people inside at once, each of them with their own shower head. In addition, the fact that the girls might have extremely long hair was also taken into consideration.

Once the two women were inside the shower, Hope shut the glass door behind herself before then hitting a button which turned all five of the shower heads on. Even with only the two of them inside the shower, there was no place that the shower heads missed. It was like being in the middle of their own little tropical monsoon.

Hope walked up behind Mayu with a bottle of shampoo/conditioner and quickly began to work the liquid through Mayu's long hair, gently massaging the younger woman's scalp as she did.

Mayu was amazed that even though her hair was over six miles in length and soaked with water, there was little to no excess water weight. She sighed lightly while Hope worked enjoying the attention she was getting.

"What about the rest of my hair?" Mayu asked, but Hope simply smiled and pulled her lover into a light hug from behind.

"Don't worry, the run-off will take care of the rest. This isn't normal shampoo." Hope explained, before getting an idea and whirling around Mayu, so that she was now standing in front of her young lover.

Even though Mayu had seen Hope naked many times by now, she was still amazed at her lover's beauty, even more so now, as she watched the water run down Hope's wonderfully curved body.

_'She wasn't born, she was sculpted.'_ Mayu thought.

"Why, thank you, Mayu." Hope smiled.

"You read my mind again." Mayu giggled, even as Hope pulled her close until both of their breasts were pressed up against each other.

"Now, I'll wash your body..." Hope seductively said, as she poured the soap between their breasts. "...With mine."

With those words, Hope pinned Mayu against the wall of the shower and began rubbing their bodies together, quickly working the soap into a thick lather. Mayu moaned in response as she began to move as well, helping her lover to work the soap into an even thicker lather. The cascading sound of the falling water was the only thing that drowned out their lustful moans.

The two lovers continued to soap each other before Hope tripped on some of Mayu's hair causing her to fall, taking Mayu with her, but the sheer thickness of the hair cushioned their landing. Hope was now lying on her back with Mayu hovering over her, supported by her hands and knees. The two beatiful women just laid there for a few moments, while the warm water gently rinsed the soap from their hair and bodies.

Hope pulled Mayu down to her and the two engaged in a heated kiss, their tongues fighting for control. Hope won the ensuing tongue war, sliding hers inside Mayu's mouth. After a few moments Mayu broke the kiss and began to move down Hope's body. At first Hope thought that Mayu was going to breastfeed again, but she was surprised when Mayu continued to move past her breasts and down her body.

Mayu didn't really know why she was still moving down, but her body now was moving on its own, and something in her mind told her to go lower. Hope moaned as her young lover began to lick her sensitive folds, the warm water from the shower adding to the already immense feelings of pleasure.

"Y-you're so good at this Mayu..." Hope breathed as she gently ran her hands over Mayu's scalp. _'She's never been this bold before...AH...she might actually make me cum.'_ Hope thought as she continued to moan and writhe on the floor of the large shower stall.

A short while later, the two lovers had finished their blissful shower, but not before Hope had a wonderful orgasm and had returned the favor to Mayu. Once again helping Mayu collect her hair, Hope followed her out of the shower.

"How am I going to dry all this?" Mayu asked.

Hope simply smiled at her fiancé. "I know what we can use, but before that there's someone I want you to meet." Hope said, and almost as if on cue, Lacus walked into the salon, followed closely by Cagalli and Murrue.

"So, why did you have Lacus call us down here, Hope?" Cagalli asked before she noticed Mayu standing behind Hope. She quickly walked over to where Hope and Mayu were standing and stood in front of Mayu, placing her hands on her hips as she started looking over the younger girl.

"G-good evening, Miss Cagalli." Mayu nervously said.

Cagalli placed her hand on Mayu's cheek and grinned. "You're a pretty one, I can't wait to play with you." She said with a hint of sadism in her voice. Just as Cagalli was about to kiss Mayu, Lacus grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked Cagalli back away from Mayu.

"OW! What the hell, Lacus!" She questioned. Lacus just looked at her pet with an annoyed look in her eyes.

"Hands off, Cagalli. Mayu is engaged to Hope. Which means you can't have her as a plaything." Lacus paused and grabbed Cagalli by the chin so she would look Lacus in the eye. "And you better not try that again, or so help me I will shove my fist up your cunt and rip out your uterus." Lacus threatened.

"Oooh, that sounds like fun." Cagalli mentally drooled.

"Please girls you're scaring Mayu." Murrue said as walked over to Mayu and Hope, and smiled at them. "Congratulations you two." She said.

"Thanks, Murrue. Where's Kira?" Hope asked, even though she knew that she hadn't asked for him to join them, she still wanted to know where he might be.

"He's on the bridge. It's his shift for watch." Murrue replied, before then looking over at Mayu. "You have quite the body, Mayu. You look stunning." She complimented.

Mayu couldn't hide the blush on her checks as she gazed at Murrue's figure. Long brunette hair stopping just above her ankles. Shapely legs, perfectly formed hips, a slight Gibson girl type waist curving up to a set of massive D-cup breasts, her flawless face, and bright marigold eyes.

"I should be saying that to you, Captain." Mayu said still blushing.

Murrue chuckled as she placed her hand on Mayu's shoulder. "You don't need to use my rank when we're down here. Just call me, Murrue." She said honestly.

"Right, I forgot." Mayu said.

"Now, Hope what is you wanted with the rest of us?" Murrue asked as she looked at Hope.

"I want to introduce Mayu to Yumi." Hope explained.

Murrue smiled and looked over at Lacus and Cagalli. "Shall we, ladies?" She asked as she Hope, Lacus and Cagalli gathered together.

"Hope, what's about to happen?" Mayu asked.

Hope gave Mayu a quick kiss before she whispered, "You'll see." The room quickly filled with a nearly blindingly bright light, causing Mayu to shield her eyes.

When she opened her eyes again, Hope and the others where gone, with a different woman standing where they once stood. Mayu gasped at the sight she saw before her. Yumi's left eye was a dark amber color, clearly a combination of Cagalli's and Murrue's eye colors, while her right eye was a bluish-purple, a combination of Hope's and Lacus's eye colors. Her hair rested at her ankles and even though it was primarily brown, it had some natural blonde and pink highlights. In addition, her voice was a harmonious mix of the voices of Kira's four lovers, as though all four of them were speaking to in perfect unison.

"Hello, Mayu." Yumi said, in her angelic tone of voice. Mayu stared in shock and wonder at the beautiful woman who stood completely bare in front of her.

_'She's gorgeous.'_ Mayu thought.

"Why, thank you." Yumi said after reading Mayu's thoughts. "Why don't we get that long hair of yours dried?" She smiled kindly.

Yumi gently took Mayu's hand and led the younger woman over to one of the many salon chairs, only this one had what looked like an inverted upright household vacuum on the back. Yumi motioned for Mayu to take a seat in the aforementioned chair.

"What's this thing on the back?" Mayu asked as she sat down and made herself comfortable.

"It's a special type of hair dryer that Kira designed. Aside from drying hair it also combs and brushes it at the same time." Yumi explained.

Inside the device were three sets of rollers, one stacked on top of the other. On the top just inside the nozzle were two counter rotating rollers with combs on them that got rid of any knots in the person's hair. Beneath the first pair of rollers was a pair of brushes that polished and straightened the hair while also making it much softer. The final set of rollers was another set of combs that removed any final tangles. At the bottom of the device was a small but powerful black hole that pulled the water from the hair leaving it completely dry and much softer then before.

Once Mayu had gotten comfortable, Yumi began to place the ends of the young woman's silky brunette locks into the device, and as she did, a pair of metal restraints clamped shut around Mayu wrists and ankles.

"What is it with Kira and these shackles?" Mayu blushed.

Yumi just smiled at the younger girl as she answered. "They were originally meant for Cagalli, to keep her from thrashing around when Lacus has sex with her."

"How do you have sex in a chair like this?" Mayu asked.

"Like this." Yumi said with a sly grin as she walked behind Mayu, only to came back a moment later, once again holding the very same strap-on that she and Hope had used earlier. Without another word Yumi strapped the device onto Mayu and slid the wearer's end into her tight pink slit. Mayu moaned lightly as Yumi slid the strap-on into place.

Yumi smiled as she collected the ends of Mayu's hair and began to feed it into the dryer before finally switching on the rollers and creating the small black hole at base of the dryer, she then moved around until she was in front of Mayu again.

"Miss Yumi, what are you going to-mph!" Mayu's question was stopped short as Yumi captured her lips in a heated and passonite kiss. The young woman instantly felt her whole body relax as Yumi kissed her, her eyes slowly fluttering closed as the kiss continued. When Yumi finally pulled away, nearly twenty seconds later, Mayu's eyes were half-lidded and clouded with lust.

_'All that from one kiss?'_ Mayu thought.

"I haven't even started yet, Mayu." Yumi grinned, even as she began to utilize a few of her more god-like abilities, actually controling the younger woman's emotions, and making her relax even further.

Mayu sighed as she relaxed almost to the point of falling asleep but Yumi made sure that she had just enough energy to stay wake.

Yumi smiled sweetly as she ran the tip of her finger up the underside of the strap-on sending a light shiver down Mayu's spine.

"Ah..." Mayu quietly breathed.

"Well, it certianly looks like the touch pads are working." Yumi said with a grin. "But I think they're set just a little too low." She added before utilizing her abilities to increase the sensitivity of the touch pads to almost five times their normal setting. "There we go, that's much better." Yumi smiled as she swung her leg over Mayu's lap and was about to slide down, but stopped mid way. "Oh, I almost forgot." She said as she got off Mayu and walked off.

Yumi returned a few minutes later, now wheeling a small container behind her. Mayu, even in her hyper-relaxed state, could also see that Yumi was now wearing the same strapless bra that she herself wore when Hope was milking her. Yumi smiled slightly as she wheeled the container up next to Mayu and opened the lid, pulling out a pair of three foot long, three inch thick leeches.

Mayu whined as Yumi placed the two leeches on her breasts, and since she was restrained, the young woman could only watch as the creatures quickly wrapped themselves around her breasts before finally attaching themselves to her nipples and beginning to suckle from her.

"Yumi..." Mayu breathed again. She wanted to scream, but her state of relaxation wouldn't let her. She was only strong enough to speak just above that of a whisper. "Get these things off me...please." She begged.

"Oh, hush now, Mayu." Yumi said with a smile. "The leeches need to feed too and these are a new breed. They don't feed on blood but breast milk." She explained, while taking up her previous spot straddling Mayu's waist over the strap-on.

"Then let them feed off of you." Mayu countered. By now Yumi had realized that Mayu was going to be difficult about the leeches, so she reached down into another part of the container and took out what looked like nothing more than a leather collar at first glace.

"Would you be so kind as to open your mouth for me, Mayu?" Yumi asked sweetly. Mayu looked at her slightly puzzled but complied.

"Like thi-mmm!" Before Mayu could finish her sentence, Yumi had shoved the collar, which turned out to be a 'pecker' gag, into Mayu's mouth and fastened the strap behind her head. "Mmmm!" Mayu tried to speak, but the silicon bulb in her mouth made speech almost impossible.

Yumi simply smiled as she quickly slid down on the strap-on, engulfing it into her tight folds. The increased sensitivity of the touch pads was immediate as Mayu's head flew back and her eyes rolled partly into the back of her head. Muffled moans could be heard from behind the gag as Yumi began to buck her hips up and down over the strap-on.

Yumi continued to ride Mayu for several minutes, enjoying every second of it. She watched as Mayu's body quivered and jerked from the heightened sensitivity of the strap-on, even as her muffled moans could be heard from behind the gag that was still strapped to her head. Mayu's eyes had slowly rolled back into place as she lazily looked back at Yumi's bucking form.

_'What did she do? It feels even better than before.'_ Mayu thought as she tried to lift her head, but was unable to do so because of the special hair dryer that was working on her hair. The device had already pulled in over half of her six mile long tresses and didn't show any signs of stopping.

Yumi moaned as she released the black holes inside the bra she still wore and started to feel the intense gravitational pull from the singularties, her breasts tingling as milk was pulled from them.

Mayu suddenly moaned loudly in her throat, involuntarily bucking her hips up just as she hit an intense orgasm. Her wrists strained against the thick shackles as every muscle in her body went stiff before relaxing back in the after glow of the intense orgasm. Yumi smiled as she slowly dismounted Mayu, watching as her young lover's hair continued to be pulled into the dryer.

"You know, Mayu." Yumi said, gently cupping the younger woman's face. "That device is more than a simple hair dryer. It also makes hair grow in length as well." She explained, smiling. "Right now, your hair is being pulled into a black hole and exiting a white hole outside the ship. Look at this." Yumi added as she picked up a small remote and pushed a button, showing a holographic image of the ship and what looked like a long, thin ribbon, which was running along the keel of the ship.

"That thin ribbon running along the keel of the ship is actually your hair, Mayu." Yumi explained. Mayu's eyes widened at the thought, but a few seconds later, she watched as Yumi removed the strap-on and put it on herself.

Yumi then gathered up her own hair and fed it into the device behind the chair, she then surprised Mayu further by unlocking one of her wrist shackles. Yumi smiled as she pulled Mayu to the side and sat down on the chair, Yumi then pulled the young woman onto her lap and relocked the restraints around Mayu's wrists.

"Are you ready, Mayu?" Yumi whispered in her ear.

_'Ready for what?'_ Mayu thought, but an instant later, she felt Yumi's hands sliding along the back of her thighs before stopping at her knees. Yumi lifted Mayu's knees while spreading her legs at the same time. Yumi then proceeded to buck her hips upward, impaling Mayu on the strap-on. Mayu's head fell back resting on Yumi's shoulder as her muffled moans could be heard.

"Your walls are so soft and warm, Mayu." Yumi moaned as she once again thrust into the young woman. "I think it's much more fun when I'm fucking you." She purred, even as she picked up her speed. "We're just getting started."


	17. World War Two

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 17**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

"Kira, what exactly is the point of having us go back to 1941?" Murrue quietly asked as she, along with Athrun, Kira, Shinn, Cagalli, Hope, Lacus, and Mayu, walked towards the Excalibur's hanger bays.

"It's quite simple really." Kira answered. "We are dedicated to eradicating conflict, and the second world war was nothing more than a worldwide conflict."

"And why exactly are you planning on taking the Divinity into combat instead of one of your customized fighter aircraft?" Hope asked after a moment of silence.

"The Divinity is transformable." Kira smiled. "So, as long as I keep my Gundam in its flight mode, it will appear as nothing more than a highly advanced fighter aircraft. Either way, we need to intervene and stop this senseless killing." With that, the group split up and headed towards the hangers where their respective machines were stored.

As the Divinity Gundam, which was hidden beneath the shroud of its Mirage Colloid Stealth System, screamed through the skies above Germany, Kira's radar suddenly picked up a formation of twenty Bf-110 fighter-bomber aircraft, which were being escorted by nine Bf-109 fighter aircraft. The amethyst-eyed man smirked as he pulled into formation with the german aircraft before then dropping the shroud of his Mirage Colloid.

The German pilots stared in shock and horror at the Divinity Gundam, which now bore a German SS plane-tree camouflage pattern and had been outfited with four wing mounted weapons racks, two of the weapons racks slung under each wing. The wing mounted weapons racks on the Divinity Gundam's wings carried four AIM-9X Sidewinders, four AIM-120D AMRAAMs, four B61 nuclear bombs and four AGM-84 Harpoons.

"Targets identified; twenty Messerschmitt Bf-110 Destroyer fighter-bombers, accompinied by nine Messerschmitt Bf-109 fighters." Kira smirked as he read the information from one of the sub-screens, even as the pair of Bf-110s directly in front of him opened fire with their twin rearward facing 7.92 mm guns.

Kira rolled his eyes in disbelief as he brought both of his plasma cannons to bear and fired, unleashing a pair of blue-red energy blasts. The twin beam blasts effortlessly sheared the wings from the two Bf-110s directly ahead of him, before then continuing onward and obliterating a pair of the Bf-109 escorts.

The remaining aircraft immediately opened fire on the strange craft, but to the surprise and horror of the German pilots, their rounds simply bounced off the armor protecting the mysterious craft.

As Kira pulled up, dodging a second burst of machine gun fire, his sensors picked up another aircraft which was quickly climbing towards him. As he zoomed in on the aircraft, Kira saw that it had a fuselage which was narrow and long, with open machine gun stations in the extreme nose and tail, he also noticed that the aircraft had a pair of forward canards near the bottom of the fuselage.

"Hmm, that's a Focke-Wulf Fw-42 medium bomber." Kira muttered, dodging another burst of machine gun fire. "I didn't think that these Nazi bastards had ever completed those shitty things."

As he banked towards the approaching bomber, Kira also noticed a pair of fighters, both with a rear wing forward canard construction.

"Henschel Hs P.75s." Kira growled. "It seems that these assholes are just begging us to stomp them out of existance."

Meanwhile, as Hope and Mayu flew their F-22 Raptors high above the North Atlantic, they intercepted a German radio transmission. "This is Bismarck, we have engaged two British ships."

"Bismarck?" Mayu asked in disbelief, as she and Hope tracked the communication, finding that the massive German ship was only a few miles to the west.

"Well," Hope smirked, as she rolled her F-22 Raptor, which currently bore a German winter camouflage scheme, to the right and dove towards the floating fortress, with Mayu's own F-22 Raptor, which bore a pink-and-red variation of the standard German oak-leaf camouflage scheme, following close behind. "I say that we disable that ship and capture it."

"Mayu, what are your armaments?" Hope requested, just as the clouds parted and the massive ship came into view.

"I've got 480 M61A2 20mm cannon rounds, two B61 nuclear bombs, four AIM-9X Sidewinders, four AIM-120D AMRAAMs, four GBU-40 small diameter bombs, two AGM-84 Harpoons, and two Wind Corrected Munitions Dispensers." Mayu quickly answered.

Hope instantly suspected that the younger woman had outfited her F-22 Raptor with wing mounted weapons racks, and her suspicions were confirmed when she accessed the computer onboard Mayu's Raptor and discovered a pair of wing mounted weapons racks, each of whch were capable of carrying up to eight weapons, greatly increasing the Raptor's attack power, while not compromising its stealth abilities.

The wing mounted weapons racks on Mayu's F-22 Raptor carried four AIM-9X Sidewinders and four AIM-120D AMRAAMs, the center weapons bay carried a pair of AGM-84 Harpoons, four GBU-40 small diameter bombs and a pair of Wind Corrected Munitions Dispensers, while the side weapons bays concealed the two nuclear weapons.

Hope's own F-22 Raptor had been also equipped with wing mounted weapons racks, although unlike Mayu's fighter, Hope's F-22 Raptor carried four AIM-9X Sidewinders and four AIM-120D AMRAAMs on the wing mounted weapons racks, the center weapons bay carried four AGM-84 Harpoons and four GBU-40 small diameter bombs, while the side weapons bays concealed two AGM-123 Skippers.

As the two Raptors streaked out of the clouds and leveled out, now flying just above the wavetops, the 15-inch guns of the H.M.S Hood opened up, with the 14-inch guns of the H.M.S. Prince of Wales opening fire a few short seconds later. The two women watched as the Bismarck answered back with a broadside from its own 15-inch guns.

"Fuck this." Hope muttered as the shells from all three ships missed their respective targets. "Freedom three, engaging." An instant later, the center weapons bay of Hope's Raptor opened up and a single AGM-84 Harpoon anti-ship missile dropped out, ignited its engine and sped towards the huge battleship.

"Freedom four, engaging." Mayu called out as she followed Hope's lead, opening the center weapons bay of her own Raptor, and like Hope, firing a single AGM-84 Harpoon anti-ship missile.

The two missiles streaked in and slammed into the side of Bismarck, ripping a pair of huge holes in the thick armor protecting the massive German battleship.

An instant later, the bodies of the two fighters were suddenly surrounded by brightly glowing beam shields and in less time than it took to blink an eye, the two Raptors had actually flown through the hull of the Bismarck. Hope's Raptor had flown through and obliterated the Bismarck's ammunition magazine, while Mayu's Raptor had effortlessly punched its way through the engine room, stopping the massive battleship in its tracks.

The morning of Tuesday, May 27th, 1941 brought a heavy grey sky, a rising sea and a tearing wind from the north-west. The pair of F-22 Raptors which had disabled the Bisnark less than 12 hours earlier, were now circling high above the massive German battleship.

Hope glanced to her left as she noticed one of the British ships, the H.M.S. Hood, moving towards the disabled Bismarck. In the blink of an eye, Hope's Raptor had turned towards the Hood, and fired its EMP Cannons, completely disabling the British ship.

As soon as Hope had disabled the Hood, the massive form of the Excalibur appeared, the massive dagger-shaped ship landing in the ocean and partially submerging as one of its numerous hanger bays opened up.

The crewmembers onboard the British ships watched in stunned silence as the Excalibur slowly yet steadily moved forward until the German battleship Bismarck was completely inside the hanger bay. Once the massive German battleship was completely inside the hanger, the door slowly shut, trapping the ship and its crew inside, and then the huge ship vanished under the shroud of its Mirage Colloid. The massive dagger-ship wasn't seen again until Sunday, December 7th, 1941. The day of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

"Oh god, it's like a swarm of angry bees!" Kira Yamato yelled from the cockpit of the Divinity Gundam as the machine streaked out of the Excalibur's launch bay. Far below the Excalibur, hundreds of Japanese fighter and bomber aircraft were launching an attack on Pearl Harbor.

A few short seconds later, the Divinity Gundam screamed through the first squadron of incoming Japanese aircaft, scattering the entire formation. The Japanese pilots watched in shock and horror as the machine pulled out of its dive only ten feet from the surface of the ocean, throwing up a huge cloud of water in the process.

As the Divinity Gundam flew through the air, now in an eighty degree climb, various parts started to move and twist. The hands quickly slid out of the underside of the machine as the nose pivoted ninety degrees, before the machine's left arm grabbed it, then the machine grabbed the beam rifle on its right wing with its left hand, as the waist rotated one-hundred and eighty degrees, while at the same time, the plasma cannons retracted into the wings, finally the feet unfolded as the legs spread out.

The Divinity Gundam's eyes flashed with a bright yellow light as the chest vents opened, venting excess heat away from the machine's auxillary nuclear reactor and shrouding the now scattered Japanese aircraft in a thick cloud of steam.

Once again, Kira had outfitted his machine with four wing mounted weapons racks, with two on each wing. The wing mounted weapons racks on the Divinity Gundam's wings once again carried four AIM-9X Sidewinders, four AIM-120D AMRAAMs, four B61 nuclear bombs and four AGM-84 Harpoons.

"Enough fighting already! It only leads to more fighting!" Kira roared as a pair of F-22 Raptors screamed by the scattered Japanese squadron. The first Raptor was colored in a purple variation of what would later become known as a digital camouflage scheme, while the second bore a bright crimson variation of the standard German oak-leaf camouflage scheme.

Much to Kira's dismay and annoyance, the Japanese aircraft were quick to reorganize themselves before opening fire on the Divinity Gundam.

"You're all usless!" The amethyst-eyed man snarled as he once again transformed his machine back into its flight mode and streaked away, but less than ten seconds later, the Divinity Gundam screamed by the much slower propeller driven aircraft, now traveling at more than three times the speed of sound.

"What the hell is that thing?" One of the Japanese pilots yelled as the sonic boom caused by the Divinity Gundam's passing shook five of the fighter aircraft apart, sending the shattered remains plunging towards the ocean below.

"I'll wipe you out!" Kira roared as he pulled his Gundam into a bone-crushing 15g turn, the machine almost instantly performing a one-hundred-eighty degree turn.

"Time to terrorize and conquer everyone." Kira smirked as the plasma cannons emerged from the Divinity Gundam's wings and opened fire, the searing blue-red beam blasts destroying a pair of fighter aircraft.

"Excalibur, this is Crimson Fury." The voice of Asuka Langley Soryu spoke through the open communications line a moment later. "We've found the Japanese fleet, shall we engage them?"

"Crimson Fury, this is Excalibur, you are hereby cleared to engage and sink the Japanese fleet." Murrue ordered from the bridge of the Excalibur.

"You pathetic fools!" Kira roared as he transformed the Divinity back into its mobile suit mode. Even as the Gundam transformed, Kira freed both of the twin buster rifles from the back of his machine and began to fire the weapons continuously. He held the triggers down, holding both of the weapons at arm's length as he began to spin in circles, the bright yellow columns of energy instantly engulfing and eliminating the remaining Japanese aircraft.

After making sure that there were no other hostile aircraft nearby, Kira once again transformed his Gundam into its flight mode and streaked away, heading towards the Japanese fleet.


	18. Excalibur vs Berlin

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 18**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

"Misato, Asuka." The voice of Kira Yamato calmly called over the open communications line. "Fall back to the Excalibur, I'm going to show these fools exactly what they are up against." Asuka and Misato quickly followed their orders, the two fighters seemingly moving as one as they disengaged from the battle, ignited their afterburners and sped away from the Japanese fleet.

"What do you-" Just as the redheaded pilot began to speak, a massive orange-red mushroom cloud erupted, the nuclear fireball instantly engulfing and obliterating the Japanese fleet.

"Damnit, Kira!" Murrue's voice yelled through the communications line as the Divinity Gundam quickly pulled up to fly alongside the two Raptors. "Why did you use nuclear weapons?" Kira didn't answer, instead he forcibly closed the communications line.

"No doubt you are wondering about why exactly we are here." Kira said a few days later, as he leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table, putting his chin on his tented hands, his whole voice and posture changing a bit, becoming more intent and slightly less casual, even as he sat in the White House, discussing the war with the current President of the United States; Harry S. Truman. "With our advanced technology, we could easily fly across your entire continent in less than an hour and simply wipe both Germany and Japan completely out of existence within five minutes of our arrival over the respective countries. Only because we are dedicated to eliminating conflict, did we come here. We are far more than just a highly advanced private armed originization."

"Of course you are." The president calmly replied. The president wasn't going to say it outloud, but he was very worried by the fact that this orginization not only posessed bipedal fighting machines, but also the top secret weapons which were now in development and known as nuclear warheads.

"If you want to attack us, go right ahead." Kira calmly replied, he had been reading the president's mind since he had entered the White House, and knew that the man was truly afraid of the power which Celestial Being wielded. "But I assure you, Celestial Being will come out the victor if you should decide to fight against us. As I said earlier, we are a private armed orginization dedicated to the elimination of all conflicts. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to eliminate the current threats to peace." With that said, Kira's body seemed to dissolve into thin air as the Excalibur's transporter system activated and beamed him onto the bridge of the ship.

Less than one hour later, panic and fear was rampant within Berlin as the Excalibur floated menicanly overhead, even as hundreds of German aircraft swarmed around the huge dagger-shaped warship, pelting its energy shields wth machine gun rounds, rockets, bombs and even experimental missiles.

"It's safe to say, that since that ship floating above us appears to be invunerable to all of our weapons, we were at a massive disadvantage, my furher." One of the German commanders reported as he stood across a table from Adolf Hitler.

"That is impossible!" Hitler screamed, slamming his fists onto the table. "There has to be some way to shoot that damned thing out of the sky! Launch every aircraft we have, I want that thing destroyed!"

"They can't be serious." Kira scoffed on the Excalibur's bridge as the German aircraft continued to pummel the shields with ordanace of all types. "Fuck this shit, it's time give these Nazi faggots a small sample of our power." The amethyst-eyed man finally muttered as he picked up the phone on his chair's armrest. "All X-wings and E-wings are hereby cleared for launch, swat down those annoying Nazi flies. If some of them actually do end up having a sense of self-preservation and want to surrender, hit them with your EMP Cannons and guide them in for a landing."

A few short seconds later, forty-three small fighters screamed out of the Excalibur's primary aircraft hanger, the reletively small group of fighters consisting of 25 X-wings and 18 E-wings.

Within the cockpit of his X-wing, Luke Skywalker sighed under his breath as he began to issue orders to Rouge and Wraith Squadrons. "Rouge Squadron, Wraith Squadron, engage the enemy at will, and if at all possible try not to kill the pilots."

As the X-wings and E-wings began to dogfight with the German aircraft, the Excalibur's primary weapons bay opened, revealing millions of bombs. The weapons payload held within the Excalibur's massive bay could be changed at a moment's notice from the bridge of the ship. The Excalibur's primary weapons bay could hold a total of ten-million weapons and was currently filled to capacity. Out of the ten-million weapons currently in the weapons bay, five-million were freefall bombs, and the other five-million were percision guided bombs.

The ordnance within the bombs themselves currently consisted of one-million conventional warhead bombs, one-million thermobaric bombs, one-million nuclear bombs, one-million neutron bombs, one-million electromagnetic bombs, one-million smoke bombs, one-million stink bombs, one-million quantum bombs, and one-million antimatter bombs.

"Target; Berlin, Germany, locked on." Hope spoke from the weapons station. "Do you wish to deploy?"

After a moment of tense silence, Kira nodded as he answered. "Deploy, but use conventional ordnance only, at least for now."

"Understood." Hope answered. "Now deploying five-hundred bombs with conventional ordnance."

The Excalibur shuddered ever so slightly as it shed the weight of half a thousand bombs, the weapons freefalling for more than thirty-thousand feet before slamming into the ground. Some of the weapons detonated upon impacting the ground, but others were bunker buster bombs and drilled into the ground before finally detonating.

"Any word of their surrender, Lacus?" Kira asked while the city below them slowly burned, even as bombs continued to drop from the Excalibur's weapons bay.

Lacus was about to answer when Luke's voice came over the communications line. "This is Rouge One, I have a visual on a white flag flying above the German headquarters."

"They're surrendering?" Kira asked, not able to believe that it would be so easy.

"Yes." Lacus replied, smiling in happiness. "It appears that the Second World War is finally over."

"Fuck that." Kira growled as the vision of a glowing seed exploded inside his head, causing every living creature on the planet to recoil in shock, even as his amethyst eyes faded into the washed out glaze of a SEED possessed individual. Unlike any time before, however, Kira's eyes were now glowing with a blood red light as tornados of purple and red swirled within his pupils. "I want to make absolutely sure that we've ended this pointless bloodshed." Kira's voice was devoid of all emotion as he gave out his next orders. "Hit them with a pair of antimatter bombs."

"Wha-what?" Lacus asked, shock and horror flashing across her face. "Germany has surrendered! There is no reason for doing something like that!"

"Cagalli!" Kira growled. "Come and restrain Lacus, she's a traitor!"

Cagalli nodded slightly as she pulled out her service pistol and aimed it at Lacus's forehead.

"Kira." The pink-haired princess quietly whimpered as Hope prepared to drop a pair of antimatter bombs on the country below.

Hope was just about the release the weapons, but it was clear that she was hesitent to do so as she held her finger a fraction of an inch above the brightly glowing button.

"If you won't do it, I will." Kira growled in annoyance as he walked over to Hope and roughly shoved her aside, sending her tumbling to the floor.

"Kira!" Cagalli, Lacus, Mayu and Murrue exclaimed in unison, even as Hope's head slammed into the nearby console, sending a spray of blood across a few of the controls. As Hope lay bleeding on the floor, it quickly became obvious that she was unconscious and that Kira had disabled at least a few of her powers, specifically her regeneration.

As Hope lay bleeding on the floor, Kira raised his right hand, clearly intending to release the antimatter bombs, however, he never got the chance, as four gunshots suddenly rang out in rapid sucession. An instant later, four bullets passed through Kira's body, two peircing his heart, while the other two drilled through his head. While the shots wouldn't kill him, they were more than enough to render him unconscious.

As Kira's body fell to the floor, Mayu ran over to Hope, carefully picking up her lover's bleeding body and quickly carrying her towards the infirmary, while Cagalli, Lacus and Murrue moved to restrain Kira, before then hauling his now unconscious body off of the Excalibur's bridge.


	19. Invasion of England

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 19**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

The Excaibur was now in orbit above the Moon, far beyond the reach of any weapons currently utilized by any nation on Earth. Even so, the ship was hidden underneath the veil of its Mirage Colloid Stealth System.

"Wha-what happened?" Kira Yamato painfully groaned as he slowly began to regain consciousness.

"You tried to drop antimatter bombs onto Germany and in the process you shoved Hope out of your way, nearly killing her." Mayu Asuka angerly replied, glaring at Kira as he hung on the wall, restrained by his wrists and ankles. "I plan to make you pay for hurting Hope like that. I know very well that is was unintentioal, but it doesn't change the fact that you still hurt her."

"Attention all hands! Proceed to level one battlestations!" Lacus' voice suddenly shouted through the ship-wide PA system. "The remaining German armed forces have begun moving! We have also intercepted encryptred radio transmissions concerning America's nuclear weapons program!"

Mayu glared at Kira for a few seconds, before finally letting a sigh escape her lips as she released hm. "You got lucky this time, Kira."

"Don't worry, Mayu." Kira smiled, softly kissing the young woman on the lips.. "After this war is over you'll have plenty of time to torture me." Mayu blushed slightly, nodding as the two quickly got dressed and headed towards the bridge. On their way towards the bridge, Kira stopped in the infirmary. Mayu watched in silent awe as Kira not only healed Hope's wounds, but also restored all of her previously disabled powers.

Less than five minutes later, the bridge doors hissed open as Hope, Kira and Mayu walked in.

"What's going on?" Kira asked as he stood inbetween Hope and Mayu.

"It seems that the remaining German forces are attempting to invade England." Lacus answered. "I've also intercepted a number of the German radio transmissions, and it seems like they believe that the Excalibur is a highly classified English vessel."

Almost immediately, the bridge crew burst into nearly uncontrollable laughter. "Wow, they're even dumber than I thought!" Kira laughed as he walked over to the helm and sat down.

"What do you think we should do?" Hope asked as everyone began to slowly regain their composure.

"That is quite simple, Hope." Murrue answered. "We have to perform yet another armed intervention." Five seconds later, the Excalibur dropped the shroud of it's Mirage Colloid, and turned towards the Earth. Once the ship's bow was pointed at the planet, the massive dagger-shaped vessel began to quickly move towards the blue sphere.

Five minutes later, the Excalibur's hull began to glow a firey red as the ship once more plunged into the Earth's atmosphere. The fighting on the English coastline screeched to a sudden halt a moment later, as the huge dagger-shaped ship parted the clouds, the bow of the ship actually pushing the clouds to the side, changing the weather above the battlefield from overcast to sunny.

"Celestial Being does not start fights, but by god, we do end them, and with extreme prejudice if nesscery!" Kira's voice boomed from the Excalibur's hundreds of external loudspeakers. "All forces currently engaged in combat are ordered by God himelf to stand down and stop fighting!" Much to the dismay of everyone onboard the Excalibur, the German tanks were quick to resume their advance into England.

As the German forces continued to advance, Shinn Asuka's GN-000D Destiny Gundam steadily made its way from the Excalibur's primary mobile suit hanger to the centerline launch catapult.

"Destiny, you are cleared for launch." Lacus announced as the Destiny Gundam moved onto the catapult.

"Shinn Asuka, Destiny, commencing intervention!" Shinn replied as his machine was flung out of the ship, the sky instantly coming alive with the blurry phantoms of the Destiny Gundam as it spiraled elegantly from the Excalibur's centerline catapult.

Every one of the soldiers on the ground stared at the rapidly moving Destiny Gundam in both awe and horror, even as the machine opened fire on the German tanks with its beam rifle. The green energy bolts slammed into the German armored vehicles, the exterme heat from the beam weapons instantly igniting the fuel and ammo stored within, and obliterating the armored vehicles in a blaze of fire.

As a squadron of German fighters, armed to the teeth with experimental missiles, came streaking towards him, Shinn Asuka was aware of a single emotion permeating the charging dozen of aircraft: fear.

"If you guys are so afraid of us, then you shouldn't be fighting," he said, watching time slow as the German fighters opened fire. "Because I'm not showing any mercy!'

The Destiny's beam wings blazed to life, and the mighty Gundam sent an army of afterimages flashing forward as it dodged the fighters' attacks. The squadron of attackers broke formation, moving out to flank the afterimage-spewing Gundam.

"That's not going to work!" Shinn snapped, whipping his rifle up to cut down one of the German fighters, and dodging the attacks of the rest. A second fghter moved in behind the Destiny, but Shinn whirled around to slice the aircraft in two with his anti-ship sword, and then fired up above to drill another blast through a third fighter. The remaining machines backed away, opening fire with their missiles. Shinn backed away as the warheads came streaking in, throwing his solid shield out in front of him, and the sky lit up with explosions as the missiles smashed into the shield.

The remainng German pilots waited with baited breath as the smoke flashed up in front of them and an instant later, a barrage of beam blasts came tearing out of the cloud, wrenching three of the aircraft out of the sky before the rest could take off and evade. The smoke parted to reveal the Destiny Gundam, beam rifle raised and missing its physical shield, but otherwise unharmed and waiting.

"Making me sacrifice my shield..." Shinn growled, as the fighters moved in to resume the attack. "On the other hand, now your ranks are thinner!"

The fighters opened fire again, with a flurry of afterimages, the Destiny backflipped over the shots and charged, crushing a seventh fighter's cockpit with a palm cannon blast before the pilot could react. Even as the aircraft exploded, the Destiny whirled around amidst the smoke to spear an eighth fighter on another beam rifle shot, and took off as the remaining aircraft belatedly returned fire.

A desperate ninth fighter came charging in from behind, machine guns blazing. Shinn smirked as he whirled around to seize the German aircraft, turning and using the fighter as a bludgeon against another German fighter. As both aircraft fell from the sky, the Destiny effortlessly shot them both down with a single shot, and then ducked beneath another fighter's machine gun volley, hurling a beam boomerang through its fuselage. The boomerang arced down towards the final fighter, but it managed to dodge the blade at the cost of its left tailfin, and went charging up towards the Destiny, still spewing machine gun rounds.

Shinn only watched as the boomerang came whirling around again and tore the aircraft in two, and as his bisected foe exploded, Shinn caught the twirling beam blade and returned it effortlessly to its rack.

"Really, this is getting tiring." Shinn said with a sigh, as the Destiny glanced back towards the Excalibur and took off.

Meanwhile, onboard the rebuilt German battleship Bismarck, which was about twenty miles offshore and was currently engaged in battle with the HMS Prince of Wales, the radio came to life. "My Furhur, we have a problem." The man on the other end, known as Adolf Galland, said.

"We have lots of problems," Hitler grunted, as his ship rocked again. "What is it?"

"My men have taken the English beachhead," Galland said, "but since then, something terrible has happened...and my men..."

"What is it?" Hitler asked, as a sinking feeling began to materialize in his heart.

"My men are killing each other, sir."


	20. The Retribution Gundam

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 20**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

"What?" Hitler all but screamed into the radio as the Bismarck violently shook from another torpedo hit.

"My men are killing each other, sir!" Galland repeated.

After a few seconds, Hitler growled. "I think it's about time to utilize our trump card. Move the Retribution Gundam to the rear deck and prepare it for immediate launch."

"What the fuck is that?" Shinn asked his monitors as a mobile suit shot off of the Bismarck's rear deck.

The machine had a familiar snowflake shape, similar to the Legend Gundam of ZAFT, but this one was blood red in color, possessed a machine gun in place of a beam rifle, a thick physical shield on its right forearm, and a physical anti-ship sword, instead of one with a beam blade, in addition, what functioned as DRAGOON units on the original version of the Legend Gundam were now nothing more than wings outfitted with additional thrusters. To put it mildly, the crimson machine which was now floating ahead of the Destiny Gundam was vastly underpowered, even when compared the Strike Daggers which the Earth Alliance had produced during the First Bloody Valentine War.

"Oh wow." Shinn chuckled as he quickly analyzed the machine. "They call this piece of crap a Gundam?"

On the bridge of the Excalibur, Kira was struggling not to burst out laughing as the analysis of the enemy Gundam appeared on one of the four sub-screens which were positioned at each corner of the main screen.

"I'm going to launch in the Divinity and show these fools exactly what they are trying to fight against." Kira smirked as he stood up and headed towards the door.

"Shinn, return to the Excalibur." Kira calmly ordered a few moments later, as the Divinity Gundam screamed by the Destiny Gundam. The angelic machine leaving a trail of glowing afterimages following in its wake. "I will deal with these assholes."

As the Divinity Gundam moved to combat the Retribution Gundam, a single aircraft in the Excalibur's primary aircraft hanger began to spool up its engines.

"Captain." Lacus said, as the warning appeared on her screen. "We have an unauthorized engine start in the primary aircraft hanger; an Antonov AN-225."

"Bridge to Antonov. What the hell are you doing? Shut down immediately!" Murrue ordered through the communications line, even as the huge six-engine aircraft began to quickly taxi towards the launch catapult.

"Antonov, abort takeoff!" Murrue repeated, her voice rising in volume. "You do not have takeoff clearance! You must abort! I repeat, you must abort!"

The bridge crew watched through one of the sub-screens, as the massive aircraft continued to make its way towards the launch catapult.

"Cagalli." Murrue ordered, as she glanced towards the blonde-haired woman. "Lower our altitude to 150 feet." The marigold-eyed woman then turned to Hope and continued to give out orders. "Hope, if that aircraft somehow manages to pull up before slamming into the ocean, shoot out its engines." The brown-haired woman paused for a short moment, but then she added. "Do your best not to destroy the aircraft or kill the pilots."

"Understood, Ma'am." The two women replied in unison, even as the Excalibur began to descend from an altitude from 1,500 feet, to only 150 feet.

Meanwhile, the Divinity Gundam had begun fighting the Retribution Gundam. At the moment, however, Kira was merely toying with his opponent.

"You can't keep up with me." Kira grinned; mocking the enemy pilot, as he causally dodged a swing from the Gundam's physical blade. "You can't possibly react as quickly as I can." Kira continued yawning within the cockpit of the Divinity Gundam as he effortlessly dodged a burst of machine gun fire. "Even your thinking can't keep up with mine!" The amethyst-eyed man smirked as he finally decided to fight back.

With a flash, the beam saber within the Divinity Gundam's right wrist came to life and Kira swung the bright green energy blade at his opponent. The glowing beam blade cleaved through the Retribution Gundam's arm as though it were a red-hot knife slicing through a block of ice.

"Like an animal, you're just moving by instinct!" Kira smirked, even as the crimson machine charged forward again, with its sword positioned for a killing stab. The enemy pilot was clearly intending to pierce the cockpit of the Divinity Gundam with the Retribution Gundam's physical blade. Kira rolled his eyes as he dodged the attack, before then slicing the Retribution Gundam's sword in half length-wise with the beam saber on the Divinity Gundam's right wrist.

"My sword!" The German pilot cried out in shock and horror, as he let go of both pieces of the now useless blade, which began to quickly fall towards the ocean below.

Kira grinned, almost manically, as he unleashed his DRAGOON units, and as they cleared their mounts, each of the remote weapons deployed a small set of wings and ignited their internal engines. The remote weapons quickly surrounded the Divinity Gundam with a pink beam barrier, although unlike the other times when the weapons were used for protection, the beam barrier which they generated wasn't transparent.

After a moment the beam barrier faded, but the DRAGOON units remained where they were, floating in midair. The German pilot recoiled in shock and horror as he gazed upon the Divinity Gundam.

The machine was now a grotesque shadow of its former self. Its eyes were completely gone. The sockets nothing more than black vacuums within which nothing reflected. The armor now resembled skin, but it was so pale that it was almost blue. The machine also seemed to have somehow acquired a mouth, which was hanging open. Impossibly open, much further than any human jaw could extend. To make it even worse, the gaping maw was full of dozens of razor-sharp teeth. The machine also seemed to be wearing a thin white nightgown, which had appeared to have been drenched in water, and was clinging to its emaciated body. The machine's now stick-legs looked like they would buckle under the machine's own weight if it were to land on solid ground.

The German pilot continued to watch, transfixed in horror, as the Divinity Gundam slowly floated towards him. Every movement which the machine made was silky smooth and completely silent. It reminded the horrified German pilot of a white ribbon dancing in the wind.

"It isn't so much that you want to live." Kira smirked at the enemy pilot through the still open communications line. "What bothers you the most is that you don't know for sure what happens when someone dies." The amethyst-eyed man paused for a few short seconds, allowing the DRAGOON units to once more dock on the Divinity Gundam's back, before he continued speaking. "Do you want to know what happens when a person dies?"

Without bothering to wait for a reply, Kira began to utilize his powers to alter the appearance of his body. What the German pilot saw a moment later, would never leave his mind. Kira's body now resembled an oddly small, waif-like creature, like a starving child with skin that was much too pale. He now looked like a corpse that had been dropped in water, for his skin was tinged with blue. Every vein was visible. His decaying flesh soaked with dried, cracking blood. His amethyst colored eyes were gone, having been replaced by empty, lifeless black sockets which stared straight ahead at the monitors in front of him.

"There is no heaven." Kira said, his voice disturbingly calm and emotionless, as a menacing grin crossed his face. "There is no hell. There is only oblivion."

Just as Kira finished speaking, he effortlessly cleaved the Retribution Gundam in half, from crown to crotch, with his beam saber. An instant later, the trillions of gallons of water in the ocean far below suddenly changed into boiling lava and everyone onboard the Bismarck began to panic as the steel hull of the massive battleship quickly succumbed to the intense heat, slowly melting from the outside in.

As the huge battleship began to slowly melt, Kira utilized more of his God-like abilities, reaching into a universe which he had visited previously and dragging a group of people into the universe which he currently occupied. At the same time, Kira also returned the ocean below to its former state, leaving the once proud German battleship as nothing more than a burning hulk.

"Where are we?" Isabella Swan, or "Bella" as she was more commonly known, asked as she looked around, clearly confused. A few seconds earlier she had been at her graduation party, but now she was in what appeared to be a hanger of some sort. As she looked around, she was relieved to find her boyfriend, Edward Cullen, by her side, along with the rest of his family.

"What are these things?" Bella asked, motining to the large humaoid machines which surrounded the small group.

"These, Isabella Swan, are machines known as mobile suits." A young man's voice replied as he descended from the cockpit of one of the machines on a zipline.

Bella turned to look at the man as his feet touched the floor, but he merely stayed where he was, sttanding in front of his machine.

"Who are you?" Edward asked as he stepped protectively in front of Bella.

"My name is Shinn Asuka." Shinn smiled. "It's a pleasure to finally meet the famous Cullen family."

"How do you know us?" Edward's adoptive father, Carlisle, asked. "And what do you mean famous, we are no diffrent from any normal family."

"No." Shinn replied. "You are what most people would call vampires, although unlike others of your kind, you feed ezclusively on animals and not humans." Shinn paused for a moment, to allow his words to sink in, then he added. "As for why you are all famous, that is because you, along with a tribe of werewolves, were able to able to defeat an ancient group of vampires who called themselves the Voltuie."

Just as Shinn finished speaking, the voice of Lacus Clyne echoed throughout the ship, clearing multiple aircraft for simultanious takeoff from the aircraft hanger deck. "Mobius and Yellow Squadrons, you are both cleared for immediate takeoff. Strigon and Hammerhead Squadrons, please taxi to the catapults and standby for takeoff clearance."

The Excalibur shuddered ever so slightly as the catapults fired, launching the aircraft of Mobious Squadron and Yellow Squadron from the ship. A few seconds passed, but suddenly, the shriek of metal grinding against metal filled the air as multiple alarms began to sound and Lacus yelled. "Damnit, La Flaga! I told you to wait on the taxiway, not to try cutting in line by taxing in between Strigon 4 & Strigon 5!"

Both the Yellow and Strigon Squadrons consisted of thirteen Su-33D Super Flankers, whereas the Mobius Squadron, consisted of eight F/A-22 Raptors and the Hammerhead Squadron consisted of fifteen B-52H Stratofortresses.

The Super Flankers of Yellow Squadron bore a digital camouflage sceheme with yellow wingtips, while Strigon Squadron's Super Flankers posessed a black and red color scheme, with blood red wingtips. The F/A-22 Raptors of Mobius Squadron posessed a grey camouflage scheme, while the B-52H Stratofortresses of Hammerhead Squadron bore an aquatic camouflage scheme.

As was standard for all of Celestial Being's combat weapons, the aircraft had been upgraded. All of the aircraft in the hanger now possessed Mirror Coated Phase Shift armor, the standard machine guns had been replaced with beam machine guns and each of the aircraft, including the reconnisance planes, had been equipped with a rearward firing scattering beam gun.

"Hammerhead and Strigon Squadrons, you're both cleared for takeoff." Lacus sighed, then she added. "La Flaga, thanks to that little stunt you just pulled, Captian Ramius has taken you off the pilot roster until further notice. Proceed to the hanger deck, power down your aircraft and report to the briefing room immediately." As Lacus finished, the Excalibur shuddered once more as the catapults fired again, launching the aircraft of Hammerhead Squadron and Strigon Squadron from the ship.

After a moment, Lacus continued to issue directions to the dozens of aircraft which were still waiting for clearance to takeoff. "Valkyrie and Rapier Squadrons, you will be the last two squadrons allowed to takeoff. Rapier Squadron is to fly escort for Valkyrie Squadron." She paused for a moment before continuing. "Valkyrie Squadron, don't forget that you are carrying a nuclear payload." Lacus once again hesitated for a few seconds before finally adding. "Your targets are the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasake in Japan. Good luck and please don't forget about those who are sacrificing their lives for peace."

As their squadron names suggested, Valkyrie Squadron exclusively flew XB-70 Valkyrie bombers, with a total of 20 bombers, while Rapier Squadron only flew XF-108 Rapier fighter/interceptors, with a total of 25 fighter/interceptors.

As the two squadrons ignited their afterburners and sped off towards Japan, the Hammerhead Squadron began to carpet bomb the still smoldering remains of the Bismarck.


	21. METEOR

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 21**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

"Valkyrie 1 to Excalibur." The pilot of the lead XB-70 Valkyrie spoke as his own Valkyrie Squadron, which was being escorted by the Rapier Squadron sped over Japan, three short hours after taking off. "We are five minutes from drop point."

Just before Lacus could answer, one of the pilots in the escorting Rapier Squadron spoke up. "All aircraft, be on your guard, we've got multiple enemy fighters incoming."

"Whoa!" Rapier 1, or as he more commonly known, Andrew Waltfield, shouted a few short seconds later, as he barely managed to dodge a pair of modified Ohka suicide planes, both of which were spewing cannon fire. "These guys fly like maniacs!"

"All planes, arm your weapons! Defend the Valkyries!" Andrew growled as his orange and silver XF-108 Rapier turned to chase after his attacker, beam machine guns blazing. "Valkyrie Squadron, how long until you reach the drop point?"

"About two minutes, sir." Valkyrie 1 replied.

"Understood, we'll keep the enemy off your tail." Andy replied, narrowing his eyes as his computer analyzed the enemy aircraft, but as the analysis finished, his eyes widened in horror. "All planes, exercise extreme caution! Not only have these Ohkas been modified to function as jet-powered fighters, but they are also armed with a nuclear warhead in the nose!"

"And this is the kind of shit that happens when people become desperate." Kira sighed as the Divinity Gundam screamed onto the battlefield in its fighter-like mobile armor mode. Emanating from the machine's external speakers was a song from the early 21st century called "Vestige" which had been performed by a Japanese singer known as T.M. Revolution.

The Divinity Gundam was closely followed by Mobius, Strigon and Yellow Squadrons. "Celestial Being forces, you are clear to splash all hostile aircraft." The amethyst-eyed man ordered as he transformed his machine into its mobile suit mode and opened fire while the three newly arrived squadrons broke formation and began to dogfight with the attacking aircraft.

"Wha-what the hell is that thing?" One of the Japanese pilot yelled as he barely managed to barrel roll up and over the rapidly charging Divinity Gundam, even as the angelic machine continued to wildly fire a mixture of bullets and beam blasts from its head-mounted 76mm CIWS, chest-mounted 20mm CIWS and chest-mounted beam machine cannons.

"Kira." Hope's voice suddenly spoke through the open communications line. "I've launched a METEOR unit loaded with nuclear missiles for you."

"Something which she did without asking the rest of us." Cagalli added.

"If it ends the war sooner, I honestly don't care." Kira replied as he pulled out of the battle, only to streak back into the fight five short seconds later. "Kira Jesus Yamato doesn't approve of you!" The amethyst-eyed man roared as he cut down more than half of the enemy fighter aircraft with his beam swords in a single pass, before obliterating the remaining aircraft an instant later as he unleashed a cloud of conventional missiles.

"All enemy fighters are confirmed down." Andy said. "You're clear to commence your bombing run, Valkyrie Squadron."

"Understood." Valkyrie 1 replied as the bomb bays on the XB-70s opened.

"Bombs away!" All of the Valkyrie pilots chorused as a single nuclear tipped cruise missile dropped from each of the bombers and ignited their engines. With a flash of exhaust, the 20 missiles quickly streaked away, speeding towards their designated targets.

As the missiles screamed away from their launch aircraft they quickly changed course, with 10 of the missiles heading towards Nagasaki, while the other 10 missiles headed towards Hiroshima. As the weapons settled on their new course they moved into a single-file line, poised to deliver their lethal payloads in rapid succession.

After only 20 seconds of horizontal flight, each of the missiles abruptly pulled into a steep climb while simultaneously igniting their powerful F-1 rocket engines. The F-1 rocket engine utilized by Celestial Being was the same as the engines which had been used in the Saturn V rockets during NASA's Apollo Program. Even after what had technically been thousands of years, the F-1 was still one of the most powerful single-chamber, liquid-fueled rocket engines ever developed, capable of producing 1,522,000 lbs of thrust at full burn.

The altitude of all 20 missiles quickly increased, from only 1,000 feet to nearly 100,000 feet in only 25 seconds, until finally each of the weapons pitched over into a vertical nose-dive, plunging straight down upon their helpless targets. The ear-shattering thunderclap of nearly two-dozen sonic booms radiated out from the missiles as they relentlessly screamed towards their designated targets in single-file.

An instant later, all 20 nuclear missiles impacted the Earth in rapid succession, completely vaporizing the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in a hell storm of nuclear fire.

"I still think that a single bomb for each city would have more than sufficed, Kira." Lacus calmly said through the communications line as the Divinity Gundam stood on the Excalibur's foredeck. The angelic machine was still docked with its METEOR unit and Kira could hardly wait for someone to attack them so that he could get back on the battlefield.

"I don't want to fight either, Lacus." Kira lied. "But the simple fact is that we have been charged, by God himself, to eliminate all conflicts."

"I understand that, Kira." Lacus answered. "I simply think that using ten nukes on a single target is excessive."

"It may be excessive," Kira sighed. "But human stupidity is a very powerful force."

"Kira does have a point, Lacus." Hope replied, glancing over her shoulder at the pink-haired woman. "Even with this ship, the Excalibur, we still weren't able to end the First Bloody Valentine War until after both sides had used their weapons of mass destruction on each other."

After a long moment of silence, Kira once again spoke up. "The real question is; why we should even care what these insignificant humans do. You all seem to keep forgetting that we are Gods. We can do whatever we want without having to worry about the consequences of our actions."

Complete silence fell over the communications line for a long moment, but suddenly Lacus spoke up. "Well, it seems that the Japanese didn't appricate the fact that we nuked two of their cities into oblivion."

"Why do you say that, Lacus?" Kira asked.

"Because we've got hundreds of Japanese aircraft coming towards us!" Lacus answered.

Kira simply smiled as he glanced at his radar, while simultaniously opening an all-frequency communications line. "Hmm, that is an impressive attack force." His grip tightened on the controls as he added. "Or rather, it would be impressive, if I had never fought against and defeated entire fleets of Earth Allaince and ZAFT warships with only a single Gundam!"

"What the hell are the Earth Alliance and ZAFT?" One of the Japanese pilots asked. Even though the massive squadron was still far beyond visual range, their radios had no trouble picking up the communications line which was now emanating from the Divinity Gundam.

"You are all so ignorent." The amethyst-eyed man replied, as his Gundam, which was still nesteled within the menacing confines of its METEOR unit, once more took to the air. "The Earth Alliance and ZAFT are massive armed forces, both of which could completely wipe your insignficent Japanese Empire from all existence!" As he finished speaking, Kira unleashed a huge cloud of muclear missiles.

The missiles streaked over the horizon before detonating, dozens of red-orange mushroom clouds quickly forming just over the horizon.


	22. Dead Planet

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 22**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

"Excalibur to Divinity!" The voice of Lacus Clyne all but yelled through the Divinity Gundam's cockpit speakers; even as the Gundam in question continued to relentlessly and ruthlessly slice the swarming Japanese aircraft apart with the METEOR's beam sabers.

"Damnit, Kira!" The voice of Cagalli Yula Athha yelled, the tone of the blonde-haired woman's voice making it clear that she was more than a little upset. "You will return to the Excalibur now!"

"I'm not letting these assholes get away with attempting to kill you." Kira answered, before then forcing the communications line closed.

The Divinity Gundam rattled violently as a pair of Ohka suicide planes slammed into the right side of the METEOR unit; however, since the two aircraft had been armed with conventional warheads, they didn't cause any damage to the Divinity Gundam, or its massive weapons system.

"Is that it?" Kira laughed as he unleashed a cloud of guided missiles. The missiles were quick to lock-on to the Japanese aircraft, including a few of the fighters which had managed to get behind the Divinity Gundam. In the blink of an eye, dozens of explosions lit up the night sky as the missiles obliterated their targets.

"All hostile fighter aircraft in the immediate area have been eliminated." Kira scowled as his once more ignited the METEOR's primary engines. "Divinity is now proceeding towards the city of Tokyo."

As the Divinity Gundam entered Tokyo airspace an hour later, it was greeted by thousands of Japanese aircraft of all shapes and sizes, including now obsolete biplanes from the First World War and even modified civilian aircraft. The aircraft immediately opened fire on the angelic form of the Divinity Gundam with their machine guns.

"Pathetic." Kira muttered, even as countless numbers of machine gun rounds began to harmlessly bounce off of the Divinity Gundam's Mirror Coated Phase Shift armor. The amethyst-eyed man simply shook his head in disbelief as he continued towards the center of the city, completely unimpeded by the still swarming aircraft.

"God does not approve of you!" Kira screamed through the now open-channel communications line as the underside of his METEOR unit opened, revealing a large bomb bay which had been packed with nearly three dozen missiles and bombs.

The weapons themselves, whether they were guided or unguided, carried various types of ordnance, ranging from simple smoke and stink bombs, to high-explosive bunker buster bombs and nuclear-tipped cruise missiles. Kira had even outfitted his METEOR with a pair of anti-matter bombs. The weapons were arranged in layers, with each layer consisting of an equal number of missiles and bombs. This configuration allowed the unit to not only bomb its target, but to defend itself at the same time.

A grim smile crossed Kira's lips as he pulled the triggers on both control yolks, releasing the first wave of missiles and bombs. A few short seconds later, the city below erupted with multiple explosions and gas clouds as the weapons impacted, releasing their cargo.

Back on the Excalibur's bridge, Kira's five lovers watched in horror as the main screen lit up with nearly a dozen explosions, each of the explosions accompanied with various warnings. Murrue growled as she finally got out of her seat, quickly moving to Lacus and shoving the pink-haired princess out of the way before then picking up the radio transmitter and opening an open-channel, all-frequency communications line.

"KIRA YAMATO!" The brown-haired Captain screamed, the tone and volume of her voice making it undeniably clear that her patience was now completely gone, even as tears began to slowly slide from the corners of her eyes and down her cheeks. "YOU WILL RETURN TO THE EXCALIBUR NOW OR I WILL BE FORCED TO GIVE THE ORDER TO SHOOT YOU DOWN!"

Within the cockpit of the Divinity Gundam, Kira closed his eyes and let out a relaxing, centering sigh, watching as the purple, gold veined seed fell through the infinite vastness of his mind, before finally striking against some invisible but infinitely hard surface, shattering the Seed in a release of energy so profound, so visceral, that every living being in the entire universe, regardless of whether they were sentient or not, recoiled in shock.

An instant later, Kira once again pulled the triggers on both control yolks. This time, however, he unleashed the entire payload which the Divinity Gundam and its equipped METEOR unit possessed, including the METEOR's pair of World Devestator cannons; easily enough destructive firepower to reduce the entire planet to nothing more than a smoldering, highly radioactive cinder.

"KIRA, NO!" His five lovers screamed in unison from the Excalibur, even as the Divinity Gundam momentarily vanished within the blindingly bright light caused by the simultaneous firing of all of its weapons. All of the Excalibur's windows instantly tinted to a deep black in order to protect the crew from the harsh light.

An instant before the Divinity Gundam fired, the Excalibur pulled into a vertical climb, igniting all of its engines, while also activating its Wings of Light as well as its Trans-Am System. Less than twenty seconds later, the massive dagger-shaped vessel had cleared the atmosphere and was moving into a high orbit around the now dead planet.

After a moment of tense silence, the Divinity Gundam streaked up from the ruined planet and proceeded to land in the Excalibur's primary hanger bay.

"WHY?" Lacus Clyne shrieked, tears floating freely from her beautiful blue eyes as she followed Kira Yamato through one of the Excalibur's corridors less than ten minutes later.

"Because, Lacus." Kira growled. "I've been in so many battles over the years that I honestly don't care about humanity anymore." The pink-haired beauty was instantly frozen in place by her lover's words, and she became even more terrified as he continued. "Humanity is selfish and greedy. They are never satisfied with what they presently have, they always want more and, to be completely honest, I have gotten sick of it!"

"Kira." She whimpered. "What have you become?"

"That should be obvious." The amethyst-eyed man scoffed. "I've become God himself."

Lacus instantly expected Kira to vanish from the current plane of existence, but to her surprise, nothing happened.

"See?" Kira smirked. "Even God himself knows not to mess with me."

Unknown to anyone onboard the Excalibur; the Earth, along with all of its inhabitants, had been restored and all of the nations were now banding together.


	23. Traitorous Minerva

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 23**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

"How are our preparations coming along?" General George Patton asked as he walked into the recently completed aircraft hanger hidden far beneath the surface of the Nevada desert. The hanger was truly massive, able to hold a total of 1,000 aircraft, 500 fighters and 500 bombers.

"We're about one week ahead of schedule sir." One of the technicians replied.

"Good." Patton replied. "Any new information on our enemy?"

"Yes." The technician answered as he handed the General a clipboard which had a few photos along with a readout of one of Celestial Being's more powerful aerial weapons; the Aigaion.

"This airborne carrier of theirs, the Aigaion. Do we know how what its carrying capacity is?" Patton questioned as he glared at a photo of the vaguely manta ray shaped craft.

"We're not sure, sir." The technician replied. "But we suspect that it is capable of supporting at least two dozen fighters as well as at least a dozen bombers." The technician paused for a brief moment, but then he continued. "We do know, however, that the Aigaion is the base of operations for Celestial Being's 9th Tactical Fighter Squadron, also known as the Strigon Squadron. We have no idea what kind of fuel this thing runs on, although, given what has been observed so far, we suspect that it may utilize some form of perpetual energy."

"So," Patton sighed. "We are up against an enemy who doesn't rely on any form of known fuel to power their weapons and, on top of that, they are able to destroy entire planets in an instant."

"It almost seems as though we are going to be fighting against God himself." The technician grimly replied.

"Yes, it certainly does." Patton replied after a moment of silence.

"Sir!" One of the radar operators suddenly shouted. "We have a massive craft descending towards us from beyond the atmosphere!"

Outside, one of the parameter cameras swiveled towards the sky and focused on the quickly descending form of the Celestial Being warship Minerva. The ship currently bore its ZAFT colors of grey-and-red, with the insignia of the United States Army Air Force on the wings and tail.

"The approaching ship wishes to open communications with us." The radar operator announced a moment later, clearly in shock.

After a long moment of silence, Patton nodded. "Put it through."

"This is Misato Katsuragi, Captain of the Celestial Being warship Minerva." A female voice spoke. "We wish to negotiate a cease-fire."

Something about the sight of the Excalibur's pilots arrayed before him in their flight suits sent Kira's blood rushing through him with new vigor. They had hung up a Celestial Being flag on the hangar wall behind him, all eyes turned up towards the commander as he stood on a hangar gantry. Yes, it was a good day to be a member of Celestial Being, and soon it would be even better.

"Soldiers of Celestial Being!" he cried. "I know you have suffered much in the past years, knowing that our comrades are unable to jump into this universe to assist us, knowing that the Earth Alliance grows stronger by the day and our people suffer and die under their brutal hand, knowing that we are all that is left of the fighting spirit of the Coordinators in the Earth Sphere, knowing that we are Celestial Being's last representatives on the Earth. And," his face contorted in hatred, "I know you have suffered, knowing that there are traitors in our midst!"

He swung out his arm furiously. "Yes, the warship Minerva may very well be in the hands of the Naturals, but we know that ship and its crew better than they ever could! We know who they really are! We know just what price they paid for their treason, and that price was our blood!" He clenched his fist. "But through these years, training and preparing for this day, you have never forgotten what those traitors and cowards have cost us. They turned against us in our most desperate hour and delivered us into the hands of the enemy. They cost us our homeland, our people, our dignity, our power. And for our brothers and sisters who died, on the battlefield and off, they cost them the voice of a people!"

The air went silent. "But," Kira continued, "We have not forgotten. We will not let them forget. They stole our technology, and more importantly; they stole the lives of our people and our comrades through their treachery, and such a crime can only be repaid in blood." He clenched his fist before him. "So, soldiers of Celestial Being, we have our task set before us! Our wait is over! Our suffering ends! Go, not as broken refugees and shell-shocked survivors from various different planets and universes, but as warriors! Go as soldiers of Celestial Being! Go, and deliver our message!"

He thrust his fist skyward.

"We speak for God himself!"

Every man and woman in the hangar pumped their fist towards the heavens. "For God! For God! For God!"

Kira grinned as the hangar rang with the words of men and women speaking once more as soldiers.

"We're coming up on the Earth Alliance armada now," Lacus nervously reported a few hours later, as she sat at the sensor console. "But, err, captain, they're in a strange formation..."

Sitting in the captain's chair, Murrue Ramius studied the situation before her. The Earth Alliance couldn't be so foolish as to attack the Excalibur. "Meyrin, contact the Minerva."

"Uh, yeah, about that," Meyrin spoke up with evident nervousness in her voice, "we're actually being jammed on all frequencies."

"What?" Mayu cried. "Check them again; they can't be so stupid as to do that!"

The bridge door hissed open and Kira Yamato burst through like a typhoon. "Dive the ship, now!"

"Dive?" Murrue started.

"Now!" Kira roared. "Before they fire!"

Murrue hesitated a moment, saw the Minerva's guns angle up, and then seized the intercom. "Cagalli, 200 meter dive, immediately!"

The Excalibur lurched as it abruptly nosed down towards the ocean, and Murrue's eyes went wide as the three enemy battleships and three submarines opened fire with a devastating barrage, slicing by over the Excalibur's dorsal surface and glancing off its armor. The ship shook ever so slightly, and Murrue stared in disbelief as the warships angled their guns for a second blow.

"They just shot at us!" Mayu cried. "What the hell? They can't be serious!"

"They are," Kira snarled. "Captain, you would do well to remember in the future that everyone can be blinded by foolish hatred."

With that, he sprinted out the bridge door, and Murrue looked back at the Minerva.

"I can't believe this shit." She snarled and seized the intercom again. "All hands, Condition Red! Stand by for anti-ship, anti-aircraft and anti-mobile suit combat! All mobile suit pilots, launch immediately!"

Murrue slammed the intercom down and glowered at the warships arrayed before her as the Excalibur's defensive and offensive systems quickly came to life.


	24. Kira Yamato vs the world

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 24**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

The Divinity Gundam thundered out of the Excalibur's centerline hangar, with Kira in the cockpit, eyes darting rapidly around the battlefield. "These crazy bastards."

A wave of beam fire cut him off, and he rocketed upwards in surprise. As he leveled out, his amethyst eyes widened in surprise at what he saw hovering before him.

"Evangelion Unit 04." Kira scowled, struggling to hide his surprise as he slashed at the silver Evangelion Unit with his wrist-mounted beam sabers, forcing it to back away. Even though Kira could probably still win this fight, he certainly wasn't used to being denied omnipresence. "Misato Katsuragi, you traitorous bitch."

"Stand down, Kira." Misato said, even as Evangelion Unit 04 was forced to back off while taking cover behind its beam shields to block the beam blasts from Kira's rifle. "Without your more god-like abilities, even you won't be able win against the combined forces of every nation on earth."

"You want to bet on that?" Kira laughed, even as a green Slash ZAKU Warrior streaked in close atop a Guul unit, twirling a long double-edged beam axe and bringing it down with a crash. Kira ground his teeth as his Gundam plummeted backwards, only for the ZAKU to follow up with another punishing blow.

Kira clenched his fists around the Divinity's controls, pushing his Gundam higher. "There's only one of you!" The Divinity rocked again, this time as a GuAIZ R on a Guul pounded his with a rail gun salvo. "What?"

As he raised his rifle to deal with the GuAIZ, instinct bolted up through him, only for the Divinity to quake again, as the Slash ZAKU vaulted off its Guul, slammed the Divinity in the chest with a vicious kick, and then brought its axe down through the Gundam's rifle.

"My rifle!" Kira clenched his teeth and hurled the rifle's sparking remains at the ZAKU; only for another blast to hit him head-on as the ZAKU darted aside, bringing him face to face with a bazooka-toting GINN on a Guul. "There are still only three of you!"

The Divinity blasted up over its enemies, drawing a beam saber, and the three mobile suits followed with a storm of firepower. Kira seized his chance, diving to the right as the GINN fired again, and with a crash, he stormed forward and slashed the GINN's bazooka in two.

Undaunted, the GINN dropped its ruined bazooka and swatted the Divinity to the side with a heavy blow from its anti-armor sword.

The GINN and GuAIZ charged, the latter igniting a beam saber on its shield.

"Fuck this shit!" Kira roared as he fired a full-burst from his weapons, completely obliterating both machines with a single hellish volley.

"Do my bidding!" He yelled as his DRAGOON units shot off their wing monuts, each of the remote weapons leaving an army of brightly glowing afterimages in their wake.

The sky crackled with beam blasts as two Slash ZAKUs and a Blaze ZAKU struggled to shoot down the blinding Destiny Gundam. With a shriek of twisting metal, one of the Slash ZAKUs met its end on the blade of the Destiny's anti-ship sword, and Shinn whirled around to face the two survivors.

"I guess this is my fault too," he grunted, and rocketed upward to avoid the ZAKUs' return fire. "But like hell am I going to let you win!"

The Destiny danced effortlessly around the two ZAKUs' blasts, slamming its sword down onto the Blaze ZAKU and ripping both the mobile suit and its Guul unit in two. As the Blaze ZAKU exploded in a thundering fireball, Shinn charged through the flames and down towards the Slash ZAKU, and with a crash and a vanishing flame of life, he tore the last ZAKU in half.

Even as the ZAKU exploded, Shinn's senses screamed, and he whirled around with his beam shield active, only for a salvo of beams and bazooka shells to slam into it and drive him back.

Behind the smoke, he tensed at the sight of three gray DOM Troopers coming to a stop before him in combat formation.

"So," snarled a man's voice, "you guys thought you could get away with trying to eradicate humanity."

"You've had quite a run of it," added another man.

"But don't think you can escape us now!" finished a woman's voice.

Shinn's eyes darted between the three DOMs. "Well well," he muttered, "Team Razor. So you guys have turned against us as well."

The woman with the eye patch and red hair scowled back at him. "Only after Celestial Being decided to try to exterminate humanity, you son of a bitch."

One of the men sniffed in contempt. "Hilda, I don't want to hear another word from this bastard."

The woman smirked. "Understood. Herbert, Mars, let's kill him!"

The three DOMs rocketed apart and opened fire.

"We want to recreate humanity in our own image!" Shinn shrieked as the Destiny suddenly ignited its Wings of Light and surged forward, severing the heads of all three DOMs with a single beam saber slash, instantly disabling them. "We want a world of everlasting peace!"

"Lacus, Mayu." Murrue said, as she sat on the Excalibur's bridge. "Both of you proceed to the hanger and launch. Hope, Cagalli and I will join you shortly." Both women nodded and quickly moved towards the door.

"Hope." Murrue continued, seething in the captain's chair as her warship wheeled around to resume the battle. "Give the computer fire control. Set it to take whatever shots it can get. Cagalli," her eyes flashed furiously, "take us down into their midst and get us to point blank range, then switch to computer control."

"What?" Lacus and Mayu screamed in unison as they stopped at the door.

"We're playing a little game of Chicken," Murrue responded as she picked up the intercom. "Attention all hands; brace for collision."

The five women fixed their eyes on the Minerva for a few seconds before then proceeding towards the hanger.

The Divinity Gundam, with its angelic wings once more whole and brightly glowing, reeled under the punishing sword blow from a GOUF, and with a laugh, the enemy pilot somersaulted over the stunned Gundam. Yzak Joule raised the Duel Gundam's beam saber, but the GOUF swatted its arm wide with its shield.

Kira's blood froze in his veins as he watched the GOUF drive its sword through the Duel's cockpit.

"Yzak!"

The enemy pilot yanked his sword from the skewered mobile suit and regarded the smeared blood on its surface with glee. "And now, it's your turn!"

In the Divinity's cockpit, Kira stared in disbelief at the cloud of smoke and wreckage that had once been the Duel Gundam, that had once been Yzak Joule. Kira's eyes turned towards the GOUF's sword, dripping with blood.. His ears rang with the hysterical laughter of the enemy pilot.

But with a flash, his eyes saw only the purple-and-gold veined seed rapidly spinning within his mind before exploding as though it were the creation of the universe itself.

The GOUF roared forward, sword upraised for a finishing blow, but an instant later, the Divinity closed the distance between them with blinding speed and ripped the GOUF's entire right arm out of its socket with its left hand. As the GOUF shuddered under the blow, the Divinity stahed its saber and tore off the left arm, and then, with a crash, the Divinity seized the GOUF by the neck with its left hand and ripped off the GOUF's cockpit hatch with its right. Robinson stared in disbelief as his mobile suit's chest plate went sailing towards the sea, and an instant later, the whole mobile suit shook as the Divinity slammed its right hand over the open cockpit, and Robinson found himself staring down the barrel of the Divinity's right-hand palm cannon.

"Tell me," Kira's voice snarled through the broken machine's cockpit, through the enemy pilot's brain, as he found himself completely at his opponent's mercy. "Tell me what was so important that he had to die!"

The enemy pilot scowled in rage to hide his fear. "D-Don't think you can threaten me!"

"Tell me why you killed him!" Kira roared.

The palm cannon's opening began to glow, and the pilot's rage vanihed as he looked on in horror at the glowing light, and the growing heat. "You wouldn't," he started. "I'm...I'm defeated! Mercy! Mercy!"

"Mercy?" Kira screamed. "You want mercy?" The light grew brighter, the heat greater. "I'll show you mercy! I'll show you the mercy you showed him!"

The pilot shrieked in pain as the heat ignited the fabric of his flight suit, and flames sprang up over his legs, racing up his body. Writhing in agony with flames swirling upon him, he barely managed to look up through burning eyes at the Divinity's blazing palm.

"I'll show you your brand of mercy!" Kira snarled. "I'll show all of you!"

"HELP ME!" The pilot screamed, as the flames consumed him.

Inside the Divinity, Kira watched in fury as the smoke poured out of the GOUF's cockpit. At last, he ramped the palm cannon's intensity back up to its normal level, burning away the pilot and punching through the mobile suit's torso; and at last, he hurled the sparking mobile suit down at the Minerva, watching, seemingly without care, as the remains of the machine impacted on the rear deck of the warship, exploding into a massive fireball just behind the bridge.

He looked up with furious, dull eyes; a whole squadron of mobile suits was approaching from the air. They looked to be a mixture of Earth Alliance, ZAFT and Celestial Being models; they were clearly reinforcements.

"I'll show all of you," he growled, clenching his trembling fists around his Gundam's controls. "I'll show all of you exactly why I am known as both God and Satan!"


	25. Captured Gods

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 25**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

With a bloodcurdling scream from its pilot, the Divinity sliced down like a hawk and ripped the beam rifle from a yellow GuAIZ's hand. It immediately jetted backward, opening fire with the beam cannons on its backpack; the Divinity ducked aside and charged again, beam saber in hand.

"Are you afraid of me yet?"

Sparks flew and the sky lit up as the Divinity slammed its saber down onto the GuAIZ's own blade. The GuAIZ ignited a pair of blades on the end of its shield and swept down at the Divinity's waist, but caught only afterimages. Instead, up above, the Divinity came plummeting down and sliced off the GuAIZ's left arm and shield with a punishing downward hack, sending the severed limb sailing away. The GuAIZ backed away, staring momentarily at the molten end of its arm, before the Divinity was upon it again, beam sabers clashing.

"You think you can just come here after betraying us and kill my friends?"

The GuAIZ reeled from a devastating knee to the abdomen, followed up by an earth-shattering kick to the chest. It opened fire with its beam cannons again as it pitched backward, only to catch more afterimages, and in an instant later, the Divinity was there to throw it backwards again with another saber strike.

"You think you can come here and beg me for mercy?"

Backing away, the GuAIZ deployed its rail guns; the Divinity burst up into the GuAIZ's face and sliced their barrels off before it could fire.

"You think I'll let you get away with this?"

The GuAIZ furiously swung its saber towards the Divinity's cockpit; Kira effortlessly blocked it with a downward hack, knocking the GuAIZ's blade aside.

"I'll tear you apart!"

The terrified life inside the GuAIZ's cockpit vanished as the Divinity rammed its left hand clear through the GuAIZ's chest and out its back. The yellow mobile suit sputtered smoke and sparks, until its monoeye faded away. The Divinity yanked its arm out of the GuAIZ's corpse and kicked it towards the sea, and watched impassively as the sky lit up and the world shook with a thundering explosion.

In the Divinity's cockpit, Kira turned his eyes towards his Gundam's hands, dripping with blood.

_'What have I done?'_

Kira ran the words through his head as he stared at his Gundam's bloody hands, floating above the ocean in the battle's wake. He knew full well where that blood had come from, and every pilot he crushed, every mobile suit he tore down, was still fresh in his memory. He knew what had prompted this orgy of bloodletting; Yzak, his death, his senseless death, his remains a cloud of debris somewhere in the skies over this miserable patch of ocean. He knew his own battle cries, drawing fear and blood from his enemies and running wild over both.

"I want to protect the world, not kill it." Kira weakly sobbed before finally passing out from exhaustion.

Kira's eyes fluttered open, the young man wincing and groaning at almost the same time. His mouth felt fuzzy and raw and tasted heavily of bile, the skin on his body felt tight and sensitive, especially across his chest, like he was wrapped a bit too tightly in cellophane wrap. Trying to take a deep breathe was impossible, as soon as his lungs expanded past a certain point, searing pain lanced through his chest, it felt like his ribs were about to fly apart into a billion pieces! Even when his eyes were fully open, his vision was blurry and the ceiling seemed to have a nasty tendency to rotate disconcertingly, and for one of the first times in his life, Kira felt loggy and lethargic, despite being fully awake.

His mind re-engaging, spurred by the sudden flashes of memories of what had happened the night before, Kira tried to sit up, before the searing pain in his chest convinced him that perhaps it was better to lie down. By tilting his head on his neck, and lifting the sheets with careful but still jerky motions of his sore arms, Kira discovered that his chest was tightly wrapped with tape and bandages from just below his armpits almost all the way down to his hips, which accounted for the tightness and difficulty expanding his lungs he'd experienced. Everything was a little hazy, not just from the injuries, but from the intense emotions which had powered him in the last battle.

Laying his head back on the pillow of the hospital esque bed he was lying in, surrounding by various monitoring equipment, though only a single IV line was attached to his arm, feeding him fluid nutrients, and a heartbeat moniter clipped to one finger, which only made sense.

Mustering his nerve, Kira slowly inched himself upright into a sitting position, leaning against the wall behind the head of the bed, by the end of which simple movement he was sweating and gasping with pain from his chest. He'd been hurt worse than he'd thought, but all the same, the pain had the sharp, immediate sensation of a minor injury, just a lot of them, and Kira felt pretty confident that in a week or two, he'd hardly even feel a twinge.

He looked around the room he had awoken in, seeing a drape covered window in the wall to his left, and a large and very strong and secure looking door in the wall to his right. The room was hardly decorated at all, just light beige painted drywall and some creamy colored wallpaper bordering the ceiling and floor. It looked like a room in an apartment before anyone had moved into it, spotlessly clean and neutral. Except for the not so unobtrusive video cameras on armatures that hung in the corners of the room from the ceiling, so that the bed he was lying in was covered from at least four different angles. Also, something about the almost antiquated fire suppression sprinkler system in the ceiling made Kira think that it was designed to spout more than just water or fire retardent foam, though he couldn't place his finger on the exact thing that had tipped him off.

Kira was in the process of working up the nerve to swing his legs off the side of the bed, in preparation for standing up, when there came the sound of multiple heavy bolts sliding and clicking from the direction of the door, which then swung open with surprising quietness, since it had to be at least two inches thick of reinforced armored steel, if not something even stronger.

"There's nowhere for you to go." A voice suddenly boomed from a hidden loudspeaker, causing the amethyst-eyed man to jump in surprise. "The door is constructed of solid titanium, six inches thick, and the window is five inch thick bullet proof plexiglass. The walls, floor and ceiling of this room are reinforced like the door, and you are being constantly monitored by a detachment of ten soldiers. A further five soldiers patrol the hallway outside, fully armed and armored, with authorization to use deadly force if required. Furthermore, as you have no doubt noticed, the ceiling fire suppression system has been modified, and any escape attempts will only result in the room being filled with an anasthetic gas that can overwhelm even you with a minute or two of exposure."

"You could have just said something along the lines of; stay put in this room and don't try to escape." Kira pointed out. "By giving me all those details, its almost like you're begging me to try and think of a way around all of those security measures."

"In happier times, that might even be something we would ask of you." The voice answered sarcastically. "I merely wanted to illustrate the point that this room has been designed to be secure even against an Ultimate Coordinator."

"How do you know what I am?" Kira asked, his eyes widening in shock.

"It certianly wasn't easy." The voice answered, with more than a hint of contempt. "After capturing your machine, the Divinity Gundam as you call it, our best scientific minds spent nearly an entire month trying to break through the security system." The voice paused for a moment before continuing. "Even after breaking through the first security level, all we were able to find was information about the machine's pilot, information about you."

"Good luck with getting any more information from the Divinity's computer." Kira replied with a chuckle. "At the first sign of any unauthorized access, Zero automatically locks down and freezes all of the Divinity's systems." The amethyst-eyed man grinned as he continued. "Even if you were able to somehow perform a forced system boot, Zero would move to the next level of defense; invading your mind and leaving you as nothing more than a drooling vegetable in less than an eight of a second." Kira paused for a moment, allowing his words to sink in before he finished. "In short; I am the only one who can unlock and use that machine."

"In that case," The voice replied, as a large flat screen television set, which had been built into the wall on the other side of the room, flared to life. "Enjoy the next 200 years in solitary confinment."

As the voice vanished, the previously static-filled screen resolved itself. To Kira's horror, the screen displayed what he assumed were live video feeds of his five lovers. They were all naked, each of them in a room similar to Kira's own, and like him, they were the only occoupants in their respective room.

Cagalli suddenly shrieked as a man walked into the room, grabbed a handful of her beuatiful ankle-kength blonde hair, yanking out a handful of it as he dragged her up to a hunched over position and then buried his fist in her gut, driving all the air from her lungs.

As Cagalli lay gasping on the floor, the man calmly walked over to a large cabinet which was built into the wall of the room. The man calmly opened the cabinet doors, revealing a truly impressive collection of various implements of torture.

After a short moment, he once more turned to face his beautiful captive, and Cagalli's golden eyes widened in horror when she saw that the man now wielded a cordless portable power saw in his right hand and a cordless portable power drill in his left.

Before Cagalli could even begin to rise to her feet, he was upon her, although she did manage to find her voice, just as he sunk the now rapidly spinning saw blade into her chest. A high pitched shriek of agony escaped the blonde's lips as her now shattered ribs ground together as she tumbled backwards, once again hitting the floor.

The man smiled sadisticly as he stood over her before driving his heel down on her left hand, crushing her wrist and driving jagged pieces of bone out through the back of her hand.

Due to the powers which she posessed, Cagalli's body began to regenerate almost instantly, or at least it would have, had the man not torn her chest open and braced it with a steel surgial brace. The surgical brace was quite effective in keeping Cagalli's chest cavity completely open, leaving her internal organs entirely exposed, even as they continued to sustain her.

Cagalli watched through her now tear-clouded eyes as the man reached into her chest cavity and gently grasped her still-beating heart. After a moment, he yanked Cagalli's still beating heart from her chest, spraying torrents of crimson blood.

The man watched in shock and amazement as Cagalli's heart quickly regenerated and continued to sustain her life. As the blonde-haired woman's body healed itself, the man picked up the drill and affixed a bit which was five inches long and half an inch thick.

Another sadastic smile crossed the man's lips as he then pulled the trigger on the drill, the bit quickly spinning up to speed. Cagalli let out another shriek of unimaginable pain as the man drove the now rapidly spinning drill deep into her womanhood, the cold steel rod mercilessly tearing into her tender vaginal flesh.

Kira watched helplessly through the screen as another man walked into Lacus's cell, even as Cagalli continued to be tortured. The second man calmly walked over to Lacus and without any hesitation, grabbed her by the arm, dragging her over to what looked like nothing more than a simple chair. Lacus screamed as the man quickly overpowered her and tied to the chair before then covering her mouth with duct tape.

As soon as Lacus had been secured to the chair, lights flickered to life on the ceiling, revealing that Lacus was being held in the chair by thick leather restraints and a manacle around her neck. A contraption on the chair held two power drills about six inches from either side of her head, pointed directly at her temples. Lacus's beautiful blue eyes widened in horror as the drills began to spin, and once they had spun up to speed, they began slowly moving towards her temples.

Kira continued to watch in horror as another man walked into Murrue's holding cell, wheeling what looked like a hospital gurney behind him. Murrue threw a right hook at the man in an attempt to keep him away, but he caught her fist before grabbing her by the neck and slamming her into the wall.

"Murrue!" Kira shouted at the screen. "Leave her alone, you son of a bitch!" He seethed through clenched teeth. The unknown man then picked up Murrue, once again by her neck, and slammed her onto the gurney.

Kira then saw the man unfold what looked like a pair of one ton truck winches attached to the sides. He then shackled both of Murrue's wrists to the winches and pressed the "ON" button and the winches began to pull on Murrue's arms. Kira could hear Murrue beginning to shout in pain as her wrists began to bleed from the strain. Kira slammed his fist into the monitor and glared at the camera that watched him.

"Stop this! They have nothing to do with my actions!" He demanded.

"That's where you are wrong, Mr. Yamato." The voice of his captor calmly replied. "All of them are responsible for your actions. How many times did they have the option to stop you? And how many times did they even try to stop you aside from words?" The voice asked. "They are as much to blame as you are." There was a pause before the voice came back on. "This must be hard for you seeing as Murrue is your first, and as it says here, main wife."

"You bastard!" Kira shouted.

"Shall we listen in on her?" The voice said before pushing a button that fed the sound from Murrue's chamber into Kira's own. Instantly Kira's holding cell was filled with Murrue's screams of pain. Then suddenly there was a loud "pop" sound followed by an ear splitting shriek from Murrue as her right shoulder joint was pulled from the socket. A second "pop" was heard an instant later as her left shoulder did the same.

The man in Murrue's room then reached into his pocket and pulled out a small vial of a greenish highly corrosive liquid. The two winches continued to slowly pull on Murrue's broken arms as the man pried one of her eyes open and poured a small amount into her eye. Murrue shrieked in pain as the acid burned through her eye. Kira could still hear his wife's screams of agony as the man poured the rest of the acids into her other eye.

"You assholes!" Hope shrieked as she watched. Like Kira's own, the cells which the girls had been confined to had monitors in them so that they would be forced to watch each other suffer.

"I'll fucking kill you all!" Hope screamed, but just as she finished speaking, a massive guillotine blade sliced down from the ceiling, the razor-sharp blade effortlessly cleaving her body in half from crown to crotch.

The blade had struck and retracted so quickly that no one had noticed it, except for a loud 'bang' which echoed within Hope's cell for a few seconds. Hope's eyes glanced around for a few short seconds, the only sign of anything being wrong was a thin line of blood which now ran vertically through the middle of her body.

For a few short seconds, Hope remained alive and fully conscious, the two different sides of her split head looking down in disbelief as her organs spilled out from inside her body, but finally, the two halves of Hope's body flopped lifelessly to the floor, a large pool of crimson blood quickly collecting below the corpse as the few remaining internal organs slowly slipped from the now completely exposed central body cavity.

"Hope!" Mayu shrieked, tears streaming freely from her eyes as she watched her lover get sliced in half. As the two halves of Hope's body flopped to the floor, Mayu backed away from the screen, pressing her back against the wall and sliding down it before then burying her head in her hands as she continued to sob uncontrolably.

Unseen by Mayu, the two halves of Hope's body were quick to regenerate, before then merging into a single body.


	26. Freedom

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 26**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

"So what's your plan then?" Kira asked flatly, his arms folded across his chest as he glared at the communications screen on the table in front of him. He was hardly able to believe this was his own twin sister, or rather her past-self, known as Faith Yamato.

"You're not going to like it." Faith replied, almost hesitantly.

"How is that any different from how I feel right now?" Kira countered. "I'd at least like to know what my fate is going to be, even if I don't have any say in the matter."

"You'll be taken into custody at an asylum for the insane." Faith winced as she saw the blank look cross his face. "It's a temporary measure. While you are there, the experts will do a full evaluation on your mental state. It may take a few weeks, maybe a few months, but at the end there should be no doubt as to whether you are sane or insane. Meanwhile, the military and police investigators will be going over every battlefield and piece of evidence with a fine toothed comb. They are already saying that there's some contradictory evidence. I'm asking for you to give us time to build a case for your innocence, because right now there's simply no way that the court will rule you as being either guilty or insane."

"And what if these experts conclude that I am not mentally sound?" Kira scoffed, his voice slowly rising in volume as he continued. "Perhaps, because I am angry after the attempted murder of my family as well as unjust persecution from the rest of humanity, not to mention the recent loss of my more holy powers, I'm just not inclined to being the polite and gentle man I usually am? How will they differentiate between the true insanity of a man pushed over the edge, and the obsessive determination of a man who has, on countless ocassions, nearly lost his family to senseless and violent means, and knows for a fact that he is the only one who could possibly deliver justice for those deeds because of an unbelievably corrupt and barbaric legal system that has turned against him at every step?"

"It's the best that can be done." Faith sighed, she could sense Kira's anger slowly, yet steadily rising.

"The best that can be done?" Kira echoed. "That's complete bullshit and we both know it! None of these pathetic countries can even hope to reverse-engineer, much less utilize any of our technology."

"Yes, Celestial Being's technology is millenia ahead of the technology utilized in this universe." Faith sighed. "However, we could also use our superior technology as a 'bargaining chip' when we plead for your freedom."

"You want to give these barbarians Celestial Being's technology?" The amethyst-eyed man yelled. "Have you forgotten that Cagalli, Hope, Lacus, Mayu and Murrue have all been raped repeatedly while the six of us have been stuck in this place?"

"Yes, Kira." Faith sighed, as she began to rapidly type on the keyboard in front of her, quickly disabling the monitoring software as well as the audio pickups hidden within the two rooms. "That is exactly why I have planted a special virus inside the computer system monitoring this building. This virus makes copies of all audio and video recorded within this building." Faith allowed a slight smile to cross her lips as she continued. "The virus then sends the copies of the audio and video to my own computer, all without leaving any trace of itself. In addition, I am able to edit the audio and video as I see fit and send it back here, completely overwriting the old files. And after the edited files are uploaded, there is no way to delete them."

"Wait, won't they become suspicious when they find that they suddenly can't delete their own files?" Kira asked.

"Nope." Faith grinned. "After the edited files are uploaded, they are encrypted in such a way that they will appear to be deleated, while in reality the files are still there." The blonde-haired woman paused for a moment before continuinng. "I'm going to re-enable their shitty security system now, Kira, so act normal." Kira nodded as Faith typed a few commands, once more enabling the security system.

"Giving them some of our technology might be the only way to save you and the others from hundreds or even thousands of years of solitary confinment, rape and torture." Faith said, looking away from the screen for a few seconds. "I don't want to do it anymore than you do, but it may be our only option."

"Fine." Kira reluctantly agreed. "I suppose that it would be better to give them some of our non-combat technologies than to continue staying locked up in here, being tortured and raped day after day." He paused for a moment. "But, if we give them any of our technologies, I want them to return the Excalibur, along with all of its mobile weapons, to us."

"I'll see what I can do, Kira." Faith sighed. "Unfortunately, I can't promise anything."

_'If I still had my more divine powers, this mockery of a trial wouldn't even be taking place.'_ Kira thought to himself as he stood in the testimony box.

"Let me ask you something, your honor." Kira said, the judge nodded, silently telling him to continue. "What would you do if the time comes for you to fight a devastating war against the ones you love? Would you kill because of anger, or get killed because of love? Would you protect someone you love by killing the loved ones of others?" Kira paused for a moment before continuing. "Unlike a vast majority of other pilots, I don't normally try to kill my enemies; I simply disable their mobile suits by targeting the weapons or main camera. Once their weapons or main cameras are gone, I allow them to flee."

"That is a valid point." The judge replied. "Records do indicate that in 99% of your battles, you have only disabled your opponents. However, that is not why you are presently here. You are here because you have been convicted of conspiracy to commit omnicide, as well as attempted omnicide. Also, just for the record, what do you target on aircraft?"

"I don't really see how that even matters." Kira sighed. "But on aircraft, I target the engines, leaving the cockpit and control surfaces completely intact."

_'This is a waste of our time, not to mention complete bullshit and we both know it.'_ Kira thought, directing the thought towards Faith, with their recently reacquired telepathy, as the blonde sat across from him. She was wearing a black business suit and her ankle-length blonde hair, which she normally allowed to hang freely, was currently tied into an intricate bun at the back of her head, so that it wouldn't get in her way.

_'I won't deny that it is a waste of our time.'_ Faith replied, also utilizing her telepathy. _'But you did go a little overboard in the last battle.'_

Faith could see that her lover was quickly becoming very agitated.

"Your lawyer, Faith Yamato, who also happens to be your sister." The judge said, scowling at Faith. "Claims that you seemed to be mentally unstable at the time of the last battle. Knowing that, I wonder why you were even allowed to pilot."

"Celestial Being's command structure is vastly diffrent and much more complex when compared to the command structure of the United States military forces." Kira sighed. "No offence meant, but in all honesty, even if I did try to explain it, I'm not sure anyone in this room, with the exception of other members of Celestial Being, would understand it."

"Please," The judge smiled. "Enlighten us."

"Trust me," Kira chuckled. "You don't want me to do that. I have been alive for over 2,000 years, and some of the things which I have seen and experienced would easily drive normal humans completely insane."

The judge considered Kira's words for a moment, but then he allowed a slight smile to tug at his lips as he replied. "Well, Mr. Yamato, I'll make you a deal then."

"What kind of deal?" Kira asked.

"You enlighten us." He replied, as he began to write up an official pardon, before then handing it to Kira. "If we should happen to go insane, the charges which have been placed against you and every other memeber of Celestial Being will be dropped. Your friends will be released from custody and you will also get all of your machines back."

Kira looked at the sheet of paper for a moment, carefully scrutinizing it, looking for any possible loophole, and after finding none, he slowly nodded. After releasing a relaxing, centering sigh, the amethyst-eyed man began to concontrate on his memories and on sharing those memories with everyone in the courtroom.

An instant later, everyone in the courtroom saw things which they had never seen, most of which they had never even imagined were possible: the gamma-ray laser Requiem, which had been constructed on the Moon, Kira's now, long since destroyed Freedom Gundam streaking through the blackness of space towards two huge fleets, while weilding a pair of massive twin barreled rifles, the massive form of the warship Excalibur as it hung in orbit above the Earth, even as the Second World War raged on the surface and in the atmosphere, the capturing of the Divinity Gundam after its rampage, finally the visions ended with the confinment and subsequent torture of Kira and his lovers.

"Shall I take a look?" Murrue offered as she stuck her head into the cockpit of the Divinity Gundam, where Kira now sat. The marigold-eyed woman couldn't help but smile at the blank look that her offer earned her. "How many days have you been staring at that? My eyes are fresh. Besides, before I was pushed into the captain's seat, I _was_ a fairly competent technician."

"I've been trying to get my Gundam back to my custom settings for nearly a week now." Kira sighed, his brows lifting, as a dubious look, one which should have been a little insulting, but which Murrue found endearing instead for no reason she could think of, except for the simple fact that it was Kira. "Which one of us was assigned to the G-weapon project back on Heliopolis?" She pressed, before he could do more than open his mouth. "You or me?"

He closed his mouth again and sat still for a long, quiet interval, before finally settling back into his seat with an audible exhalation of breath. "Go right ahead." He finally answered, voice heavy and disgruntled. Murrue nodded, pulling herself farther into the cockpit and sitting in the seldom used co-pilot's seat.

"Wow..." Murrue muttered, as she quickly scanned the now all but destroyed OS of the Divinity Gundam. "They really went all out in trying to hack into the Divinity's computer."

"No, really?" Kira answered sarcastically, earning him a stern glare.

"If the Zero System hadn't stopped their hacking attempts where it did, I'd be surprised if you would even be able to make your machine walk." Murrue sighed, her fingers flying over the keyboard, just as fast as Kira's own, as she began to manually scan the Gundam's computer system.

"What is this, Kira?" Murrue asked a moment later, pointing to a directory with the label of 'Music'.

"What's wrong with wanting to drown out the sounds of battle with some music?" He asked, with an innocent smile on his face. Murrue simply shook her head and sighed as she continued to scan the OS of her lover's Gundam.

Suddenly, the Divinity Gundam's eyes flashed with a bright yellow light and the cockpit hatch closed, as the machine unexpectedly came to life, the cockpit instantly filling with a blood red light.

"What the hell did you do?" Kira yelled.

"I didn't do anything!" Murrue replied as the machine began to move towards the catapult.

"Divinity, you do not have launch clearance! Abort launch!" Lacus yelled through the communications line, locking the catapult in place just before the Divinity Gundam reached it.

"We're trying to stop it from launching!" Kira and Murrue replied in unison from the cockpit, as they frantically tried to shut down the Divinity Gundam.

Seeing that as the catapult was now useless, the machine raised its beam rifle and fired at the still closed hanger doors, the searing beam blast vaporizing the metal, opening the hanger to the void of space.

The Divinity Gundam then ignited its thrusters and blasted out of the hanger. As soon as the machine was clear of the Excalibur, it transformed into its mobile armor mode and sped away. The Divinity Gundam's initial acceleration was so extreme and so sudden, that it rendered Kira and Murrue unconscious.

Everyone watched in shock as the Divinity Gundam suddenly appeared in the skies over Washington D.C., the angelic machine hovering high above the White House.

An instant later, a sudden rush of terror engulfed the entire city. Fear was everywhere, like a dark, blood drenched fog that had sprung up from nowhere, and no one was safe from its touch.

The Divinity Gundam was finally utilizing the one weapon which Kira had installed, but never armed; the Mind Crusher. As the name suggested, it was a psychic weapon of mass destruction, and it was only a matter of time before it spelled doom for every living thing in the city.

Minds snapped, flesh tore, gore spurted, breath froze in lungs, clothing was soaked with bodily waste as the terror reached self destructive, even suicidal heights. Many of the police officers and military personnel throughout the city quickly took out their sidearms, choosing the peace of a bullet through the brain rather than suffering an instant more of the uncontrollable, unexplained fear, while the unarmed civilians battered their skulls open against whatever was close to them, trying to bash the sudden, inexplicable terror out of their minds. Even those who achieved unconsciousness continued screaming, even as they fell into nightmares and were quickly devoured by the monsters of their own subconscious minds.

The sudden stench of regurgitated food filled the confines of the Divinity Gundam's cockpit as Kira sucked in deep, hoarse, grateful breathes of the hot, tinned oxygen of his cockpit, which still tasted pure and sweet to him after coming back to his senses. Kira gagged and spat globs of spittle and blood several times, before his tongue finally regenerated where his teeth had gashed it repeatedly and deeply during the mental attack he'd just suffered at the hands of his own Gundam.

Nearly five minutes had passed since his machine had arrived over Washington D.C. and began the horrible mental attack. Glancing to his left, Kira saw that Murrue was still unconscious, but he wasn't able to think about that, as dozens of anti-aircraft guns and flak cannons opened fire on him.

"Damn! They must think that I did this!" Kira growled, as he transformed his machine into its mobile armor mode, wildly dodging the hail of weapons fire, although he had no intention of shooting back.

"This is Kira Yamato, pilot of the CB-X60D Divinity Gundam and leader of Celesital Being!" He yelled through the open-channel, all-frequency communications line. "All United States Armed Forces, please cease-fire!" The only reply he received was one which surprised him; a missile warning.

Kira didn't block the incoming missiles. Instead, he transformed his machine back to its mobile suit mode and sidestepped them, often by margins of less than a foot, using delicate taps on his manuevering thrusters to shift the Divinity at the last possible second. For some mobile suit pilots, such dodges might have been a sign of desperation, but for Kira, they were just a sign of irritated boredom.

"Stop this shit!" Kira roared as he freed a pair of beam sabers from his machine's shoulders. Taking the weapons in each hand, he ignited the bright pink blades and slammed them through the exhaust nozzles of a pair of passing F-86 Sabers, leaving the control surfaces and cockpit of both fighters completely untouched.

"Divinity Gundam, this is the Washington-Dulles International Airport, land immediately!" A voice yelled over the open communications channel.

"How do you expect me to land while your pilots are still trying to shoot me down?" Kira roared as he activated his electronic countermeasures, jamming all of the electronics on the pair of Messerschmit Me-262 jet fighters which were now pursuing him, although on Kira's radar and monitors, the two German fighters appeared to be American fighters, specifically a pair of F-117 Nighthawks.

"Those aren't ours!" The tower operator yelled. "Those are German fighters! All anti-air defenses, shoot down those German fighters!"

Almost instantly, dozens of anti-aircraft guns and flak cannons, most of which were located on the roofs of high-rise office buildings, roared to life, filling the sky with a thick blanket of deadly anti-aircraft fire. Kira smirked as his Gundam effortlessly weaved through the maelstrom of weapons fire, knowing that neither the flak shells, nor the anti-aircraft rounds would be able to damage his machine.

"Nazi asswipes!" Kira roared as he let his DRAGOON units fly, quickly swarming the remote weapons around the pursuing German fighters and surrounding them with a glowing pink beam shield. "Attention, German aircraft." Kira growled, even as he transformed the Divinity Gundam back into its mobile suit mode and effortlessly sidestepped the speeding fighter aircraft. "You will surrender and land your aircraft at Washington-Dulles International Airport immediately!"

"And if we fail to comply?" One of the German pilots responded.

"If you fail to comply." Kira answered, pulling the Divinity Gundam up alongside the enemy fighters before then igniting his beam claws and flexing his fingers. "I'll crush your aircraft like the tin cans they are!"

The two German pilots were quick to comply with the order, landing their aircraft at the airport and not even bothering to put up a fight as they were taken into custody.


	27. Negotiations

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 27**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

Shinn Asuka silently watched from one of the Excalibur's internal observation decks as the dagger-shaped warship slowly slid into the custom built dock at the Norfolk Naval Station in Norfolk, Virginia. Technically this place was supposed to be home, but all the guards everywhere and the atmosphere of tension and anger assaulting his senses put the lie to that sentiment almost as soon as the gates clanged shut.

He would not disembark. Most of Celestial Being's members were not exactly trusted here anyway; why tempt fate? He glanced up as the door slid open and Lunamaria Hawke stepped onto the deck.

"There you are," she said with a start. "I was going to get off. Do you wanna come with me?"

Shinn cracked a smirk. "That probably wouldn't be wise. I got jumped right off the boat last time. You should probably stay here too."

Luna glanced around the deck, and Shinn's smirk faded as he picked up a feeling of tight anxiety from his fellow pilot, whom he had only recently proposed to. "If I stay here any longer I'll go crazy," she said. "I'll be okay. Nobody recognizes me by sight and I can just pass myself off as a random soldier or something."

"If you say so," answered Shinn with an eyebrow raised skeptically, despite a reassuring smile. "Be careful. I love you."

"I will, and I love you too, Shinn." Luna replied as she wrapped her arms around Shinn, pulling him into a deep and loving kiss. After reluctantly breaking the kiss nearly ten seconds later, she left, leaving Shinn to his own thoughts.

With a sigh curling from his lips, Athrun Zala slumped down into a chair in the Excalibur's rather spacious and luxurious crew lounge and stared down ruefully at his cup of lousy instant coffee. He could cook, but he had never inherited Andy's masterful touch. Instead, since Andy had been busy with pilot training, fate had replaced the Desert Tiger's ingenious concoctions with mere Folgers crystals, and Athrun could most certainly tell the difference.

"Goddammit," Asuka Langley Soryu's voice groaned over his shoulder, and he shot a surprised look up at her as she stared back down at him, hands on her hips. "I go looking for someone who isn't all mopey today and I find you staring angrily at your coffee."

"Sorry." He swirled the contents of the Styrofoam cup for a moment, before abruptly changing the subject. "So, how is Misato doing?"

"She'll live." The red-headed pilot replied. "But, she may not be fit to pilot anytime soon."

"That's not a surprise." Athrun nodded as the memory of the last battle flashed through his mind.

**-FLASHBACK-**

"Misato Katsuragi, you have brought dishonor onto Celestial Being!" Kira growled from the cockpit of the Divinity Gundam. "And for that, you deserve 10,000 deaths!" With a blinding flash, the Divinity's Wings of Light flared into existence. Before Misato could react, Kira had already severed both of her machine's arms and legs, before finally kicking the now bleeding Evangelion Unit into the Excalibur's open hanger bay.

As the disabled Evangelion Unit lay motionless in the hanger bay, Misato screamed and cried in pain. Unlike the Gundam pilots, the Eva pilots actually felt pain when their Eva took damage, the severity of the pain corrosponding with the amount and severity of the damage that the Eva took.

**-END FLASHBACK-**

"Yea." Athrun sighed. "I heard that after the entry plug had been ejected, it was discovered that Misato's arms and legs had actually been severed from her body."

"For the pilot's body to actually sustain the same injuries as the Eva itself," Asuka replied. "Requires an extraordinarily high synchronization ratio."

A week later, in the Excalibur's massive main conference room, the leaders of each country had been assembled, and now, Kira Yamato and Lacus Clyne stood at the head of the table, flanked by their bodyguards; Edward Cullen and Isabella Swan, respectively. Kira and Lacus were carefully scrutinizing the minds and memories of the assembled world leaders.

Finally, Lacus spoke. "As most of you are already aware; Celestial Being is a private armed organization with a single purpose; to eradicate any and all warfare from the world."

"That's preposterous!" Adolf Hitler yelled as he rose to his feet. Against all odds, the German leader had somehow survived the destruction of the second battleship Bismarck.

"Shut up, you Nazi cunt!" Kira roared as he raised a scaled-down version of the Divinity Gundam's twin buster rifle at the German leader. "You do not have permission to speak unless you are spoken to!" The amethyst-eyed man growled as the twin barrels of the weapon began to glow with a golden light. "Is that understood?"

Hitler nodded slightly as he once more took his seat.

Lacus glared heatedly at the German leader before her expression once again softened and she continued. "As I was saying, Celestial Being is a private armed organization with a single purpose; to eradicate any and all warfare from the world. As such, we demand that all countries hand over any and all weapons, both lethal and non-lethal, to us. This includes prototype weapons, weapon blueprints, incomplete weapons, antique weapons and even ancient historical weapons. If any country decides to defy us, and not fulfill these conditions within the next month, we will intervene with all of our military power." Lacus paused for a moment to let her words sink in, but then a sweet, reassuring smile crossed her lips as she finished. "All countries which agree to these terms will come under our eternal protection and their militaries will be integrated into those of Celestial Being."

"In addition," Kira smiled. "Once your military forces have been fully integrated into our own, your citizens will be able to enjoy all of our luxuries, and after every country has agreed to our terms, there will be no hunger, space-travel will become routine, almost anything you could possibly want will be avilable to you, and best of all; we will have an ever-lasting peace!"

As the conference slowly progressed, down in the hanger, the Divinty Gundam's standard anti-ship sword was being replaced by the pinnacle of melee weapon technology; the beam-edged Quantum Crystal Anti-Ship Sword.

Unlike a standard anti-ship sword, the QC anti-ship sword was made from a solid edged piece of Quantum Crystal.

Quantum Crystal was a recently discovered material, which was aligned in a regular crytsalline pattern not only on the molecular level like a gemstone, but on the atomic and subatomic levels as well, making it practically unbreakable, and extremely durable. Only two things would even have a chance at reliably damaging Quantum Crystal; anti-matter or other Quantum Crystal weapons.

The new Quantum Crystal Anti-Ship Sword was basically indestructible by physical shock or heat damage, and was even capable of cutting through any known form of armor like it wasn't even there, since it sliced apart individual atomic particles. A nuclear bomb was considered to be blunt when compared to the Divinity's new anti-ship sword.

As if the QC anti-ship sword wasn't enough, the Divinity was also being equipped with a new DRAGOON System, known as Fractal Wings. This system consisted of thirty-six seperate feather pods, eighteen per wing, each capable of manifesting either a Beam shield or a Geschmeidig Panzer energy deflection shield, while also being capable of firing either Beam or Temproal Inversion blasts, allowing the pilot to defend himself while not having to halt his own attacks.

In addition to the QC anti-ship sword and the new DRAGOON system, the Divinity Gundam was once again being outfitted with four wing mounted weapons racks, with two on each wing. The wing mounted weapons racks on the Divinity Gundam's wings once again carried four AIM-9X Sidewinders, four AIM-120D AMRAAMs, four B61 nuclear bombs and four AGM-84 Harpoons.


	28. Secrets Revealed

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 28**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

**Warning:** This chapter contains an extreme lemon, and is not suitable for anyone under the age of 18.

* * *

Kira sighed as he once more sat within the cockpit of the Divinity Gundam. He had hoped that the prospect of ever-lasting peace would be enough to make all the nations of the world join Celestial Being, but much to his annoyance, Germany and the Soviet Union still refused the offer.

"Divinity, you are cleared for launch." Meyrin Hawke's voice announced throughout the hanger bay, as the angel-winged Gundam was flung from the Excalibur and into the clear, blue sky.

"Destiny, Impluse and Twilight, please move to the catapults." Meyrin said, once the Divinity Gundam had cleared the ship and began to hover above the bow of the dagger-shaped vessel.

The Twilight Gundam was, in reality, the original Destiny Gundam, now piloted by Lunamaria Hawke. Luna had suggested changing the name in order to prevent confusion. Having been the one to make the suggestion in the first place, Luna had been tasked with thinking up new name for her Gundam, and after a few hours she had finally settled on the name: Twilight. In addition to the new name, the Twilight Gundam's Mirror Coated Phase Shift armor now sported Luna's signature red coloring.

"So, Shinn." Mayu grinned from within the cockpit of the Impluse Gundam. "I've heard rumors that you and Lunamaria are engaged."

In response to Mayu's accusation, Shinn's own Destiny Gundam, which, like all of Celestial Being's mobile suits, was controlled through a direct interface with the pilot, actually tripped over the catapult shuttle, slamming face-first into the deck. The catapult shuttle was the device which the machines locked into before then being flung out of the launch bay.

"Well, it's true that Shinn and I are engaged." Luna replied, as Shinn slowly rose to his feet, but then she paused for a few seconds before asking. "But how did you find out? We haven't told anyone."

"Kira told me last night." Mayu answered and the Destiny Gundam, which had once more risen to its feet, instantly turned to glare at the Divinity Gundam.

"Kira." Shinn growled. "I thought I told you to stay away from my sister!"

The Divinity Gundam merely returned the Destiny's glare as Kira replied. "She was the one who made the first move, not me!"

"That's not the point!" Shinn roared as he ignited the Destiny's Wings of Light and screamed out of the hanger, straight towards the Divinity Gundam.

"Shinn!" Luna and Mayu yelled in unison, as the Destiny freed and ignited a beam saber before slamming it against the Divinity's beam shield. As the Destiny's beam saber impacted with his beam shield, Kira brought the plasma cannon stored within the Divinity's right wing to bear, aiming the barrel of the weapon directly at the Destiny's face, and an instant later, Kira fired, obliterating the Destiny Gundam's head.

"Shinn Asuka." Kira scowled. "You are clearly unfit to pilot at the moment."

Shinn's only response was to lash out with the Destiny's palm-mounted beam cannons, but Kira effortlessly dodged both blasts before kicking the Destiny in the chest and sending it careening back into the Excalibur's launch bay.

As the Destiny Gundam skidded to a halt, Mayu's voice came through the communications line. "Shinn, I understand that you only want to keep me safe, but I am completely free to choose who I love." She paused for a moment, silently preparing to transmit some of her memories to her brother. "Besides, I'm happy with Kira, even if you don't approve of it."

Hope instantly realized what Mayu was going to do, and quickly disabled the younger woman's telepathic abilities, before then forcing a private communications line to the Impulse Gundam. "Mayu Asuka, as of this moment, I am revoking your piloting privlages and placing you in solitary confinment." Hope sighed. "It is clear to me that you can not yet be trusted with the powers I have bestowed on you."

Mayu opened her mouth to protest, but Hope simply glared at her. "No arguements, young lady! Now, power down your machine and report to the Inner Sanctum in five minutes. If you're not there when I arrive, and I end up having to search for you, your punishment will be much worse when I find you."

"All hands." Kira sighed, his voice echoing throughout the Excalibur. "Due to unforseen circumstances, our armed interventions against Germany and the Soviet Union have been put on hold until further notice."

As soon as Mayu's feet had touched the hanger floor, her brother was already waiting for her, glaring at her.

"I can't believe that you lied to me." Shinn scowled.

"I didn't lie to you, Shinn." Mayu countered.

"What are you talking about?" Shinn growled. "It is quite obvious to me that you are in a relationship with Kira."

"Shinn." Mayu sighed. "Even if I told you who actually dragged me into this relationship, you wouldn't believe me."

"Considering that you have already lied to me about it once." Shinn sighed. "You're probably right."

Mayu opened her mouth to reply, but she insantly froze when the hanger doors hissed open and Hope walked in. Mayu could easily see that her lover was very upset.

"If you must know, Shinn." Hope said, as she walked up to Mayu. "I was the one who dragged your sister into this relationship."

"W-what do you mean?" Shinn asked in disbelief.

"Shinn, your sister is bisexual." Hope said and in reaction, Shinn's jaw instantly dropped open. "Mayu never told you, did she?"

"N-no." Shinn answered. "I had never even suspected that Mayu was bisexual." By this time, Mayu's face was bright red from embaressment.

"If you'll excuse us, Shinn." Hope smirked slightly as she grabbed Mayu's wrist. "I need to teach this young lady what happens when she disobeys orders." With that, Hope dragged Mayu out of the hanger.

"A-are you mad at me, Hope?" Mayu asked, a few minutes later, as her lover dragged her into the Inner Sanctum.

"I'm thoroughly pissed off at you, Mayu!" Hope angrily growled as she uncermoniously stripped the young woman of her uniform, physically ripping the soft fabric away from her beautful body, before once more grabbing her by the wrist and dragging her into the Inner Sanctum. Hope remained silent as she led Mayu into the elevator and pressed the button for the second floor; the aquarium.

As Hope dragged Mayu out of the elevator and onto the Inner Sanctum's second floor, the young woman had a feeling that she would not be able to get out of her punishment this time, no matter how much she cried or begged.

Without any hesitation, Hope dragged Mayu into the water and quickly restrained her to the side of the pool. After a few short seconds, Mayu saw a ten-foot long, two-foot thick leech swimming towards her.

Mayu screamed in fear as the leech swam past Hope, diving below both women before then opening its gapng mouth, curling its body upwards and beginning to take Mayu's naked body into itself.

"NOOO! Get it off me!" Mayu cried as the large creature began to effectively inhale her beautiful body. Hope merely stood there in the waist-high water, her arms folded under her large bust as she watched. Within a ten short seconds, the leech had already swallowed Mayu up to her waist.

"Please, make it stop!" Mayu cried as the leech continued to work its way up her body, applying a gentle and pleasurable suction to every inch of her nudity as it worked its way up her body. After a few short minutes, the leech finally reached Mayu's breasts, quickly engulfing the young woman's bust.

"No, please!" Mayu cried out as her breasts instantly began to secrete a slow yet steady stream of milk, even as the huge creature continued to steadily engulf the young woman's body. As the leech finally closed its mouth around Mayu's neck, the young woman gasped as she relaized that the creature 's body was no longer restraining her. Mayu glanced down at her body, clearly surprised to find that the leech, while still engulfing and sucking on her naked body, was now form-fitting, as though it were a skin-tight bodysuit.

As the huge creature began to simultaniously caress and suck on Mayu's body, Hope grinned as she quickly reached behind the young woman's neck and gently tugged her now ankle-length tresses free of the creature's mouth, and after freeing Mayu's silky brunette locks from the leech, Hope began to lovingly run her fingers through the young woman's hair.

Hope softly kissed Mayu a moment later as she quickly and skillfully gathered the young woman's hair into a tight ponytail at the base of her skull. Mayu blushed slightly, surprised at how quickly Hope had been able to gather up her hair, not to mention how tight and secure the ponytail seemed to be.

"I'd imagine that you probably wouldn't want the leech to suck on your hair." Hope smiled, knowing that, at the moment, Mayu was probably much more concerned with the fact that the leech had essentially swallowed everything below her neck.

"To be honest," Mayu scowled, clearly upset and trying to fight back her fear, "I wouldn't care if you let the leech suck on my hair, since you've already allowed it to swallow nearly my entire body."

Hope simply sighed as she began to run her hands through Mayu's silky brunette tresses, while also utilizing her abilities to steadily lengthen the young woman's hair, and after only a few short seconds, Mayu's hair was already 10 feet long.

"Now that I think about it," Hope giggled, "I wonder what kind of effects that might have on your hair." Hope paused for a moment before smiling. "Did you know that the leeches we use were specially bred so that instead of saliva, they produce a thick slime when they take something into their mouth?"

Mayu deeply blushed and nodded, the leech which had swallowed her was quick to coat her body with a thick layer of slime.

"Did you also know that the slime acts as both a lubricant and an aphrodisiac?" Hope quietly asked, grinning as she continued to utilize her powers to lengthen Mayu's soft brunette tresses.

"N-no, I didn't know that." Mayu softly answered, even as Hope continued to lengthen the young woman's hair. Mayu's beautiful brunette tresses were now nearly 50 feet in length, and Hope had no intention of ceasing the steady lengthening of her lover's silky locks.

As Hope continued to steadily lengthen the young woman's hair, a pair of 50 foot long eels began to wrap their lengths around Mayu's soft brunette locks, quickly soaking the young woman's silky tresses with their slime.

Mayu's soft tresses soaked up the slime for nearly 20 minutes, before the creatures slowly unwrapped themselves from her silky hair and swan away. Even though the eels were gone, Mayu's hair was completely covered with a thick layer of slime.

Hope knew that she would have to either thoroughly wash, or thoroughly vacuum the young woman's beautiful brunette tresses in order to remove all of the slime and she looked forward to performing the task.

A few moments passed in almost complete silence, but finally, Hope said. "Mayu Asuka, from this moment onward, you are hereby under orders to not take this creature off your body, unless I give you permission to do so."

"Wha-what about when I am on duty?" Mayu asked, hoping that her lover would have some compassion.

"No." Hope firmly answered, causing Mayu to hang her head as tears slowly dripped from her eyes. "However, I will allow you to wear clothes over the creature, that way no one else will know about it."

After a moment of nearly complete silence, Mayu let a squeak of surprise escape her lips as she felt something gently press against her entrence before then slipping into her, causing her to moan in response.

"It seems that the leech wants to mate with you, Mayu." Hope smiled, gently caressing the younger woman's cheek.

"No!" Mayu yelled, as she began to thrash against her restraints. "I don't want this thing to mate with me!"

"You should feel honored, Mayu." Hope purred, wrapping her arms around the young woman's waist. "You'll be the first of us to give birth to giant leeches."

"Please, make it stop!" Mayu cried, as a steady stream of tears continued to slip from her eyes, even as she struggled to fight back her ever increasing arousal. "I don't want to give birth to any of these things!"

Wild orgasmic waves ran through Mayu's body every time the leech's organ hit her G-spot during her futile struggle to break free. The creature kept fucking Mayu resolutely for at least ten more minutes, before they both reached their final climax, Mayu screaming in a mix of horror and pleasure as she felt the leech shoot its sperm deep into her.


	29. Conflicting Views

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 29**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

**Warning:** This chapter contains an extreme lemon, and is not suitable for anyone under the age of 18.

* * *

"Perfect." Kira Yamato said sadly, his head in his hands as he sat at the head of the table in the Excalibur's massive main briefing room two weeks later. "Just what we need. Another cycle of senseless killing. I'm starting to wonder if Humanity really is fated to stay at the apex of the evolutionary scale. We certainly seem to be inextricably entangled in this desire to test ourselves by destroying ourselves. Eventually we're just going to wear ourselves away to nothing with these relentless and pointless conflicts."

"I still can't believe how stupid these people are." Cagalli sighed, shaking her head slightly. "I'm beginning to wonder if we should just end their existence and start over."

"I hate to think about commiting omnicide again." Lacus whimpered, her eyes slowly filling with tears. "But if these senseless wars continue, we may not have much choice."

"We can't afford to let these savages gain anymore technology." Murrue spoke up. "If we do, they will eventually become a threat to us."

"At the moment, they only have low subsonic, propeller-driven aircraft, the most basic, least destructive nuclear weapons, and no beam-based technologies." Kira said, effectively summing up the situation on Earth. "Although, the United States does have Single-Stage-To-Orbit shuttles, holodeck technologies, and beam shield technology."

After the previous incident, the Excalibur had moved into a high stationary orbit above Washington D.C. Celestial Being was still allied with the United States, and they had given the nation a few of their non-combat technologies, specifically; Single-Stage-To-Orbit shuttles, holodeck technologies, and beam shield technologies. As a safety precaution; none of the computers which were integrated into the shuttles, or controlled the holodecks or beam shields, were able to be reprogrammed without a special access code being sent directly from the Excalibur's main computer.

The beam shield generators currently protected only the most crucial locations in the country. Among the protected locations were; Washington D.C., New York City, Hawaii and Detroit, Michigan.

"How do we know that the United States won't decide to try and attack us at some point?" Cagalli asked after a moment of silence.

"We only gave them non-combat technologies." Kira sighed. "If they want to reprogram and weaponize the technology, they would need the access codes from the Excalibur's main computer in order to get past the system lockout, and I'm certianly not about to send those codes to them."

"Who's to say that they won't eventually find a way around the system lockouts?" Lacus asked, earning her a heated glare from Kira.

"It would take them a minimum of 500 years to get past the first security lockout." Kira answered. "Even after getting past the first lockout, there are still nine more in place, with each lockout becoming significantly more difficult to breach than the last." The amethyst-eyed man paused for a moment, but finally he continued. "Right now, all we really know for sure is that we can't let this situation go on. But we don't know how or even what has to be done. Personally, I think that we should waltz onto any battlefields we encounter and carve a path of destruction. That's how it's been in the past."

"That may be true." Lacus nodded. "But if we go waltzing onto any battlefield we encounter, destroying everything and everyone in our way, the hatred will never stop and the fighting will never end. Even us, because we keep on performing our armed interventions, may be just as much to blame."

"Everyone already hates us for forcing them to hand over their weapons to us." Cagalli sighed. "I have to agree with Kira on this one."

Finally, Murrue slammed her fist onto the table, her patiance had run out. "We have only recently been able to keep the fighting to a minimum because we have confiscated most of the world's weapons!" She yelled, instantly silencing the entire room. "Yet, you two..." The marigold-eyed woman sighed, motioning towards Cagalli and Kira. "You two want to keep fighting?"

Kira was instantly on his feet and yelling. "There are still two countries on that planet whose leaders are too damned stupid to realize that they can not win in a fight against us! We need to obliterate them both in order to finally realize true peace!"

"I am sick of fighting!" Lacus cried, tears slowly floating from her beautiful blue eyes.

"Tell that to the fuckers who lead Germany and the Soviet Union." Kira retorted, reading the pink-haired princess's mind as he spoke. To Kira's shock, as he read Lacus's mind he quickly found that like him, she had actually discovered joy in fighting. While reading her mind, Kira also discovered that Lacus, along with his other lovers, were upset at him because lately he had been completely ignoring, not only her own advances, but also those of his other lovers and as a result; they were all very frustrated.

"I'm telling you!" Lacus wailed. "Because you're the one who keeps dragging us into these battles!" As she finished speaking, the normally peace-loving woman delivered a stinging slap to Kira's cheek.

The amethyst-eyed man responded to the attack instantly, grabbing Lacus's outstreched arm before it had even left his cheek. An instant later, Lacus found herself being effortlessly hefted over Kira's shoulder, before then being flung through the air, only to slam into the wall at the far end of the room, her body impacting with a sickening crunch before finally going completely limp.

"Now then." Kira sighed as he once more turned to face the others. "Does anyone else have any problems with the way I go about achieving peace?" The only answer he received was Murrue pressing a powerful taser to his neck and pulling the trigger, the two-million volt electric shock instantly rendering him unconcious.

Kira came to with a moan and a grunt, and he instantly realized that his lovers were all gathered around him. All five of the beautiful women were completely naked. Even the newest addition to the harem; Mayu Asuka, was completely nude.

The five women simply watched their lover as he slowly regained conciousness. When Kira had once more become fully concious, he noticed, not only the lack of illumination, but also the fact that he was securely restrained in an upright position.

"Don't bother struggling, Kira." Murrue said, her tone teasingly seductive yet completely serious.

Finally, Kira's eyes adjusted to the lack of light and what he saw both aroused and surprised him. His lovers stood around him in a semi-circle, the five women were completely naked and their hair extended well past their ankles.

As Kira traced the beautiful flowing tresses of his five lovers with his eyes, he was quick to realize that their silky locks completely covered the floor to a depth of nearly six inches.

Lacus giggled softly as she wrapped an arm around Cagalli's waist, "You seem to have noticed the new length of our hair quite quickly, Kira"

The amethyst-eyed man silently nodded as he blushed a deep crimson.

"Do you have any guesses as to how long our hair is now?" The blonde asked, even as Lacus began to teasingly rub her slit.

"N-no." Kira replied after a few seconds of thought.

"Well, guess anyway, Kira." Murrue seductively grinned. "That's an order."

"Well," Kira said, after a long moment . "Since I am being ordered to guess, let me ask this; did you each make your hair the same length?"

All five women nodded simultaniously in response to Kira's question.

"Did you each make your hair more than one mile long?" Kira asked.

"No more questions, Kira." Murrue said, her tone one of complete authority, as she delivered an eye-watering slap to Kira's cheek.

When Kira's vision cleared a few seconds later, he noticed that Cagalli was now laying down on the thick bed of hair which now covered the floor. As to whether Cagalli had laid down of her own free will, or if Lacus had forced her to do so, he didn't know, but he had noticed that Lacus seemed to have vanished, and that Cagalli was tightly bound with the hair of the other woman.

Kira didn't have any time to really contemplate where Lacus had gone, however, as the pink-haired beauty emerged from a previously hidden doorway, pushing a large cart into the room. Lacus grinned evily as she reached into the cart and pulled out a 128 ounce jar of honey, carefully balancing the huge jar on the edge of the cart as she prepared to heft it onto the floor.

Without any warning, Lacus lost her grip, sending the jar tumbling to the floor, and while the jar didn't shatter, since it was made of hard plastic, the lid did fly off, spilling the thick, sticky contents all over the soft tresses which now covered the floor.

"What the hell, Lacus?" Cagalli yelled, as the thick liquid began to soak into their hair, while the other three women simply glared at her.

"Oops." Lacus blushed. "Sorry."

"How exactly do you expect to clean all of this up?" Murrue growled, motioning to the now honey soaked tresses which covered the floor.

"I don't intend to clean it up." Lacus quickly replied. "You four should should learn not to let your hair get covered with honey."

"Your hair got soaked with honey as well, Lacus." Cagalli sighed.

"That's true, and I fully intend to wash my own hair." The blue-eyed beauty answered, smiling. "If you behave yourself, Cagalli, I may wash your hair as well."

"I truly appricate the offer, Lacus." Cagalli blushed. "But I am quite capable of washing my own hair."

"You won't need to." Lacus said with a smile. "I'm going to try something new."

"Oh, and what's that?" Murrue asked, still slightly annoyed.

"You'll see." Lacus answered as she held out her hand and began to concentrate.

The four women stood there watching Lacus as she closed her eyes while trying to focus her thoughts. Murrue stood there silently, her weight shifted onto her left leg and her left hand resting on her hip. Cagalli had both arms crossed under her massive bust while wiggling her toes through the strands of hair at her feet. Hope and Mayu were holding hands as they all continued to watch Lacus while Kira was still chained to the wall.

After a few moments, a small black sphere, about the size of a marble appeared hovering in Lacus's hand. Hope suddenly figured out what Lacus was doing, but she decided to stay quiet. That was before Mayu tapped her shoulder.

"What's she doing?" Mayu asked.

"Shhh...Just watch." Hope quietly answered, as the small black sphere began to steadily grow in size, from a marble, to a golf ball, then a baseball, until finally it was the size of a bowling ball.

Once Lacus was happy with the size of the black hole, she moved her hand along it, following the curvature until she stopped at the top. She then began to slowly lower the black hole closer to the floor until small globs of the sticky golden honey began to float from upwards to the sphere, forming a thin spiraling ribbon until making contact and getting sucked into the black oblivion.

"See isn't this so much easier?" Lacus asked as she continued to watch her new creation work.

"Um...Lacus, how is it that only the honey is getting pulled away?" Mayu asked. She still hadn't gotten used to her new abilities and to tell the truth, she wasn't looking forward to when her brother would undoubtedly find out somehow.

"It's quite simple, Mayu." Lacus explained. "Everything in this reality is made up of atoms; each one with a specific gravitational pull to them, and by simply matching the pull, I can have this little beauty only attract certain things, in this case the honey which has soaked our hair."

"Oh...okay." Mayu said clearly puzzled. Suddenly with out realizing it, Lacus accidentally shifted the gravitational force to the point where all the girls' hair beneath the singularity began to get pulled in as well.

"Lacus, be careful!" Cagalli and Murrue shouted in unison.

Lacus barely glanced at the black hole, noticing that their hair was now being pulled into the singularity. To the shock of the other four women, Lacus didn't alter the black hole's gravitational force back to its previous state; instead she further increased its gravitational force, causing it to suck their hair in even faster. While Lacus remained calm, the other four women cringed slightly as their hair quickly formed a thin spiraling ribbon until making contact with the black hole and getting sucked into the signularity.

"What the hell are you doing, Lacus!" Cagalli cried, even as the ends of her beautiful blonde tresses vanished into the black hole.

Lacus sweetly smiled as she gently wrapped her arms around Cagalli's waist and whispered seductively into her ear. "I'm using the black hole to make our hair even longer than it is now."

"Well, in that case." Cagalli playfully smiled. "Why not alter the black hole even further so that it can take in our hair with its natural gravitational strength?"

"I just might do that, Cagalli." Lacus smiled as she led her lover over to a salon chair, sitting down before then pulling Cagalli down to sit on her lap. With one hand, Lacus gently stroked Cagalli's long, blonde hair, loving the sensations as it passed through her fingers, and with the other hand, she gently rubbed the cheeks her lover's bottom. Cagalli was wiggling on her lap, thoroughly enjoying the pure pleasure provided by Lacus's skillful hands.

Hope and Mayu, meanwhile, had both forgotten about the black hole which was still hungrily sucking on their beautiful hair, instead; the two women were now passionately kissing each other.

"Cagalli." The pink-haired beauty purred, even as she continued to gently stroke her lover's hair and bottom. "Would you let Faith seperate from you?"

An instant later, Cagalli's body was shrouded in a blindingly bright white light. When the light faded a few seconds later, Faith Yamato stood beside the salon chair.

Faith smiled slightly as her beautiful blonde tresses were quickly sucked towards the black hole, to join the other five thin spiraling ribbons of hair which were steadily vanishing into the singularity. Without any hesitation, Faith walked over to Murrue, passionatly kissing the brown-haired woman on the lips, while wrapping her arms around her captain's waist. Murrue blushed slightly before finally returning Faith Yamato's gentle embrace.

"You're so beautiful, Murrue." Faith purred as she gently ran a hand through her captain's silky brunette tresses.

Hope and Mayu had stopped kissing, now simply content to hold each other. Mayu sighed softly as she glanced down at her now her pregnant form.

"It seems that those baby leeches are growing quite quickly, Mayu." Hope smiled, eyeing her lover's swollen belly. "It's only been two weeks since that leech mated with you, and already your belly is showing obvious signs of pregnency."


	30. Training

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 30**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

Three days later, the Excalibur's hangers were alive with activity, but they weren't going into another battle. Instead, all of the pilots were waiting to undergo mandatory training, in order to keep their piloting skills fresh.

As he walked into the hanger a few moment later, Kira Yamato glared heatedly at his five lovers. After not allowing him to join in on their fun in the Inner Sanctum three days ago, he had no intention of going easy on them.

The amethyst-eyed man remained silent as he walked over to the Divinity Gundam, grabbed the zipline and let it carry him up to the cockpit.

"Divinity, Akatsuki, Destiny, Impulse, Infinite Justice afnd Strike Freedom." The computer spoke. "Please proceed to the catapults."

Before being moved to the centerline catapult, the Divinity had been loaded with as many weapons as it could possibly carry. In addition to its standard weapons the angelic machine now possessed a pair of twin buster rifles on its back, a pair of beam rifles on its hips. In addition to the hand-carried weapons, the Divinity also sported a few weapons from the original Strike Gundam, specifically the combo-weapons pod from the Launcher Striker Pack on its left shoulder, as well as the forearm-mounted rocket anchor from the Sword Striker Pack, on its left forearm. Even with all of these optional armaments, the Divinity Gundam was still fully capable of transforming into its flight mode, although it could not utilize its mobile armor attack mode, nor its "Scylla" 580mm high energy beam cannon without shedding the Striker Packs.

The six machines quickly proceeded to their desiginated launch catapults and locked themselves into launch position.

"Kira Yamato, Divinity. Launching!"

"Cagalli Yula Athha, Akatsuki. Taking off!"

"Hope Yamato, Destiny. Launching!"

"Mayu Asuka, Impulse. Heading out!"

"Lacus Clyne, Infinite Justice. Taking off!"

"Murrue Ramius, Strike Freedom. Heading out!"

The six machines streaked from the Excalibur, but to the surprise of everyone, as soon as the Divinity had cleared the catapult, it veered towards the Strike Freedom, lashing out with the beam cannon on its right palm. To Kira's annoyance, the Strike Freedom ignited its Wings of Light and dodged to the left, leaving an army of afterimages swirling through the sky.

Murrue effortlessly whirled around the Divinity, drawing the two beam daggers stored in the Strike Freedom's legs as she manuvered, and hurling them at the angelic machine with expert precision. Kira yelped in surprise as the daggers streaked by him, one grazing the Divinity's cheek while the other lodged itself in the left elbow joint. Kira snarled as he freed the beam rifles from his machine's hips, combined them into a single rifle and fired back, but the Strike Freedom dodged the shots and landed on the end of the barrel, before raising a glowing beam sword in its right hand and slicing the weapon in two.

"No more games!" Kira roared as he dropped the weapon, which exploded a few short seconds later. The Divinity then freed one of its twin barrel buster rifles, separating the massive gun and unleashing rapid-fire full-power blasts. Murrue's eyes widened as a blindingly bright column of yellow energy surrounded her machine.

Meanwhile, the Infinite Justice was dueling with the Akatsuki. "Lacus!" Cagalli suddenly cried, as she saw the beam blast streaking towards them. The Infinite Justice broke the clash and turned an instant before being engulfed by a huge column of yellow energy from the Divinity's buster rifle.

"What was that!" Hope Yamato yelled within the cockpit of the Destiny, even as the Akatsuki and Infinite Justice suddenly vanished within a pair of massive fireballs. Her question was answered an instant later, as the same column of energy which had obliterated both the Infinite Justice and the Akatsuki, enveloped her machine as well. Hope screamed in terror as the Destiny Gundam exploded around her.

Mayu froze in terror as the Divinity turned to face her. The angelic machine was no longer using Trans Am, but the Impulse was no match for the Divinity, and Mayu knew it.

Kira simply smirked as ten of his DRAGOON units suddenly dropped from the Divinity's wings, ignited their engines and swarmed around the Impulse, pummeling it with beam blasts. Mayu glanced down a a warning blared, and when she looked up again, the Divinity had vanished.

Mayu screamed as the angelic machine reappeared an instant later, now wielding a beam saber in each hand. The Impulse barely managed to dodge the first slash, quickly backing away from the Divinity. Mayu watched in awe and horror as Divinity's remaining DRAGOON units swung to the end of the machine's wings, and a field of rainbow colored energy spanned between each wing, as the Divinity's eyes turned purple, flashing.

Inside the cockpit, Kira's pupils seperated into a trio of close-knit mini-pupils, his opals turning multicolor at the edges, extending the spectrum of his vision. He growled slightly as he combined his beam sabers and flew straight through the Impulse, slicing the machine cleanly in half from crown to crotch.

Mayu's eyes widened in terror as the face of the Divinity Gundam suddenly filled her monitors. An instant later, she screamed in unimaginable pain as she felt the searing heat of the beam blade as it passed through her body, cleaving her in half. Mercifully, her Gundam exploded into a massive fireball less than a second later.

"Training complete." The computer's voice announced, even as the cockpit hatches of the six Gundams opened simultaneously and the pilots, each clad in a custom flightsuit, lowered themselves to the floor. "Winner: Kira Yamato, piloting the CB-X60D Divinity Gundam. First blood: Murrue Ramius, piloting the GN-X20A Strike Freedom Gundam. Honorable mention: Cagalli Yula Athha, piloting the ORB-01 Akatsuki Gundam. Coward: Mayu Asuka, piloting the ZGMF-X56S Impulse Gundam."

Mayu hung her head, tears slipping from her eyes. "I'm not cut out to be a pilot." The young woman sniffled before turning toward the door and running out of the holodeck.

"What a pathetic sight you five are!" Kira roared ten minutes later, as he sat in one of the Excalibur's many briefing rooms, surrounded by his five lovers. All six of them still clad in ther flight suits. "Now stop this nonsense and answer! Why could none of you beat me!"

"Nobody is ever born into this world as a soldier." Murrue sighed.

"I know that!" Kira spat back. "But all of you have been given more than enough training to hold your own against me!"

"That's not true of all of us, Kira." Hope replied. "Mayu hasn't yet undergone the advanced training which the rest of us have, so it's only normal that she froze and got taken out rather quickly."

"That is not the point!" Kira yelled, slamming his palm down on the table. "Even if Mayu hasn't received the more advanced training which the rest of you have, she shouldn't have frozen like she did!"

"Damnit, Kira!" Cagalli finally exploded. "Shut up! We may be Gods, but even now we're not perfect! We still make mistakes!"

"Celestial Being is the strongest military force ever created! We are destined to be the strongest, to go the farthest, to climb the highest!" Kira smirked. "Others may compete against us, some may envy us, some may even hate us, but in the end, we will devour any and all challengers!"

"Kira..." Murrue shivered. "We are dedicated to eliminating conflict, not simply obliterating everything in our path!"

"I am the dream of humanity, the Ultimate Coordinator." Kira scoffed glancing predatorily around the room. "I can do as I see fit."

Finally, Kira's amethyst eyes fell on Mayu Asuka. "And I think I'll start by having my way with the newest addition to our harem." Before Kira could stand up and begin moving towards Mayu, however, the young beauty began to softly moan.

"H-Ho-Hope." Mayu quietly moaned. "I can feel the baby leeches squirming inside my womb."

Fortunately for Mayu only Hope had heard her, and Hope nodded towards her young lover and replied. "That means you're about to give birth, Mayu."

"It feels so good." Mayu moaned, as the feeling of the leeches squirmring within her steadily grew stronger and continued to arouse her.

"Just relax." Hope smiled, reaching over and gently running a hand through Mayu's silky, ankle-length brunette tresses.

Kira instantly sensed the young woman's rapidly glowing arousal, glaring at her as he utilized some of his more divine abilities to actually reverse the development of the baby leeches within her womb, reverting them to nothng more than a few tiny cells, as though the leech had just mated with her a few seconds earlier.

"You're not giving birth during a debriefing, Mayu." Kira softly growled, before then walking past the young woman and stopping at the door. "This debriefing is over, you're all dismissed." The amethyst-eyed man then walked out of the room, leaving Mayu Asuka frustrated and somewhat upset.


	31. New Abilities, Old Conflicts

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 31**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

As the Divinity Gundam flew through the skies above Germany, effortlessly dodging flak and anti-aircraft fire, various parts on the angelic machine started to move and twist. The hands quickly slid out of the underside of the machine as the nose pivoted ninety degrees, before the machine's left arm grabbed it, then the machine grabbed the beam rifle on its right wing with its left hand, as the waist rotated one-hundred and eighty degrees, while at the same time, the plasma cannons retracted into the wings, finally the feet unfolded as the legs spread out.

Once again, Kira had outfitted his machine with four wing mounted weapons racks, with two on each wing. The wing mounted weapons racks on the Divinity Gundam's wings once again carried four AIM-9X Sidewinders, four AIM-120D AMRAAMs, four B61 nuclear bombs and four AGM-84 Harpoons.

The Divinity Gundam's eyes flashed with a bright yellow light as the chest vents opened, venting excess heat away from the machine's auxillary nuclear reactor and shrouding the angelic Gundam in a thick cloud of steam.

The steam suddenly parted to reveal hundreds upon hundreds of mobile suits, which now surrounded the angelic form of the Divinity Gundam. The machines were highly similar in appearance to the old Earth Alliance Strike Daggers, but these machines bore a German swastica on the left shoulder and shield.

Kira simply smirked as ten of his DRAGOON units suddenly dropped from the Divinity's wings, ignited their engines and flew straight through a group of the mobile suits which now surrounded the angelic Gundam.

The angelic machine emerged from the smoke an intsant later, now wielding a twin buster rifle in each hand, an instant later, Kira began unleashing a hail of rapid-fire, full-power beam blasts. As the twin rifles continued to spew beam blasts, the Divinity's remaining DRAGOON units swung to the end of the machine's wings, and a field of rainbow colored energy spanned between each wing, as the Divinity's eyes turned purple, flashing.

Inside the cockpit, Kira's pupils seperated into a trio of close-knit mini-pupils, his opals turning multicolor at the edges, extending the spectrum of his vision. He drew a beam saber and flew straight through a swarm of mobile suits, slicing them all in half at the waist, his machine moving faster than any sensors could detect.

To an uninformed observer, it would have appeared as though the Divinity Gundam had teleported from the center of the massive swarm of mobile suits, only to reappear an instant later, now nearly two miles away from its previous location.

"Too easy." Kira smirked, as he casually turned his Gundam to face the enemy mobile suits, which were once more charging at him. The amethyst-eyed man simply sighed as he raised both of his buster rifles, the twin barrels of the massive weapons glowing with bright yellow light. An instant before Kira pulled the triggers, the Divinity Gundam, along with the warship Excalibur, vanished from the present timeline.

A bright white flash of light suddenly lit up the blackness inside the debris belt around Earth, as the warship Excalbur was once more flung into the Cosmic Era.

"Why are we back in the Cosmic Era?" Lacus asked as the Excalbur floated within the debris belt.

"Our jump drives are offline." Cagalli sighed. "So we may as well head to the nearest PLANT colony."

"The nearest PLANT is Armory One." The pink-hared beauty answered, before her blonde-haired lover could continue.

"Set a course for Armory One, then." Murrue sighed as the door hised open and Kira walked onto the bridge.

"Divinity, can you provide assistance?" The voice of Talia Gladys suddenly spoke from the Divinity's speakers, a few hours later.

'I'm already providing assistance, you stupid bitch!" Kira roared. "If you morons at ZAFT hadn't built these new machines, this shit wouldn't have even happened!'

"Chaos, Gaia, and Abyss are battery operated." Talia said, ignoring the blatent insults which were being spewed at her by the pilot of the Divinity Gundam. "Instead, they recharge."

Kira's eyes went wide. "These machines recharge on the battlefield? Fucking wonderful!"

The Divinity Gundam was suddenly between Destiny and Abyss, both beam sabers in hand. Kira caught the blade of the beam lance between his own saber blades, raised the lance above his head, and unfolded his rail guns. At the same moment, the Abyss aimed its quad ram cannons. Both suits fired an instant later, knocking each other backwards.

Shinn sighed in annoyance as the Chaos boosted towards him, a beam saber in either hand, and the bottom half of its beam claws activated. Shinn simply smirked as he blocked the beam sabers with his anti-ship sword. Chaos kicked out at Destiny's head, but Shinn ducked, intentionally dropping his sword as he drew his beam rifle, and fired at Chaos's head, at point-blank range. To Shinn's shock, Chaos blocked the beam blast with its shield. Shinn growled as he kicked the previously discarded anti-ship sword on the ground at Chaos, and he smirked when the sword hit Chaos's shoulder, sending the machine spinning to the ground.

Inside the harbor, a pair of Laurasia-class frigates moved down the launch tracks. Suddenly, a pair of Dagger Ls with recoiless rifles were at the end of the tracks. The captain stood up just in time for a round from one of the Daggers to vaporize his torso.

Talia felt the shudder from the harbor. "Another attack? Dammit!" The back door of the bridge opened, and in stepped Chairman Durandal. Meyrin looked and shouted in surprise.

Durandal looked around. "Give me a status report."

Talia hesitated for a moment. "The Destiny is engaged in combat with the Abyss, and Chaos and Gaia are firing at the colony wall."

Lunamaria jumped as her ZAKU shuddered, then started to slowly sink in the air. She cried out in surprise.

"I got you, Luna!" Mayu called, her pink Impulse Gundam carefully picking up Lunamaria's red ZAKU.

"Mayu!" Shinn shouted. "Get to the Minerva. I can handle this. That means you, too, Rey."

"Gotcha." Mayu said, carrying away Luna's ZAKU Warrior.

"I'm fine, Shinn, let's finish this." Rey said. "If they get out of here, that's it! We've got to stop them here!"

"Now there, we agree!" Shinn smiled.

"Stop this pointless fighting, you stupid fucks!" Kira screamed as all 36 of his DRAGOON units flew from their mounts, the remote weapons elegantly spiraling through the air as they began to indiscriminately fire at anything that moved. An instant later, Rey's ZAKU was sliced into five seperate pieces as a number of the Divinity's DRAGOON units pierced it, severing the machine's head, arms and legs.

"Whoa! Watch it, Kira!" Shinn cried out, as he was forced to dodge a pair of the Divinity's DRAGOON units.

Kira didn't reply, instead he reached behind his back, freeing both of the twin buster rifles from their reharge racks and aiming them at the three machines which were now relentlessly firing at the colony wall high above. An instant later, the Divinity Gundam began to glow with a blood red light, as a field of rainbow colored energy spanned between each wing and the machine's eyes turned purple, flashing.

Inside the cockpit, Kira's pupils seperated into a trio of close-knit mini-pupils, his opals turning multicolor at the edges, extending the spectrum of his vision.

An instant later, the Divinity Gundam fired a full-burst from its weapons. Everyone watched in awe as the three fleeing Gundams were instantly vaporized, but their awe quickly turned to horror as the searing beam blasts continued towards the colony wall. With a flash of exhaust, as the Divinity Gundam's own DRAGOON units quickly assembled themselves in front of the colony wall and projected a translucent blue beam shield, stopping the hailstorm of beam blasts less than two feet from the colony wall.

As the blasts from the Divinity Gundam slowly dissipated. the Infinite Justice, Savior and Akatsuki Gundams flew into the colony interior through the now destroyed harbor and on their way in, they fired a few sporadic beam blasts, obliterating the attacking Dagger mobile suits.

Kira dropped from the Divinity's cockpit to see Athrun, Lacus and Cagalli climbing from the cockpits of the Infinite Justice, Savior and Akatsuki, respectively.

"Thank god you're all okay." Kira said.

"You don't need to worry, Kira." Lacus smiled. "After all, you were the one who trained us."

"Right, only when Cagalli's around a mobile suit do I really have to worry." Athrun grinned.

"Oh, shut up." Cagalli mumbled as she and Lacus both moved towards Kira.

"Who the hell are you?" A woman's voice shouted. Kira looked to see Lunamaria Hawke, in a ZAFT redcoat uniform brandishing a machine pistol.

_'So far, it seems that everyone believes our cover story.'_ Kira thought.

Kira mentally measured the distance and calculated how long it would take him to get to the gun, even though he already knew that would not be nesscery.

"Lower your weapons! This is Cagalli Yula Attha, the chief representative of the Orb Union." Kira called, motioning towards the blonde-haired woman.

Luna nodded slightly, slowly lowering the machine pistol, and as she did, Kira glanced out of the corner of his left eye, noticing Mayu Asuka as she decended to the floor from the cockpit of the Impulse Gundam.


	32. Infiltration

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 32**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

A few days later, Gilbert Durandal sat across the table from Athrun Zala. The two were in one of the Minerva's briefing rooms.

"You wanted to ask me for something, Athrun?" Durandal smirked as he stood up and walked to a door.

"Why do you need a fake Lacus?" Athrun asked angrily.

Durandal opened the door and walked down a long walkway. Athrun followed.

"Was Patrick always such an evil man?" Durandal finally asked.

Athrun sighed and stopped, closing his eyes. "No. He was a good man, once. Before Junius Seven."

"I believe that Patrick may have done wrong, but everything he did, he did for the PLANTs. That's why I needed a fake Lacus. The real one would never support my cause, if she knew my plan. Which is why I can't tell you, either. But I can assure you, it will lead to peace. What would you give to keep the peace?" Durandal asked..

"I'd fight for peace to my last breath!" Athrun shouted.

"Which is exactly why I'm willing to give you this." Durandel said as the two stepped into the hanger and the lights went up, revealing a mobile suit. Athrun looked at it and his eyes went wide.

"The Savior Gundam!" Durandal finished.

Athrun stared, shocked. A Gundam! And a ZAFT model at that! He didn't show satisfaction, only shock.

"Savior was designed around the same time as the three machines stolen at Armory One, equipped with the same technology, although not the same abilities, of course." Durandal explained.

"Why are you giving it to me?" Athrun asked.

"I offer it to you, all I want in exchange is Savior's use as your sword in your fight for peace, Athrun."

"Would I have to join ZAFT?"

"That is your choice, Athrun." Athrun was suddenly suspicious. He asked about obtaining a Gundam, and Durandal simply offers him one?

"I don't need this piece of shit." Athrun finally said, a smirk crossing his features.

"Why exactly do you say that?" Durandal asked. "At the moment, you are lacking a mobile suit of any kind. I am offering this Gundam to you."

"Because, Chairman." Athrun grinned. "I have a much better Gundam than the Savior." With those words, the shriek of twisting metal filled the hanger, as the Infinite Justice Gundam forcibly pried the doors open before walking over to the Savior. The Infinite Justice seemed to glare at the powered down Savior for a moment, before then shoving it aside, causing it to fall over.

"T-the Justice?" Durandal asked, his shock evident. "H-how? All of the reports claimed that you self-destructed it to destroy GENESIS!"

"Yes, I did self-destruct the Justice in order to destroy GENESIS." Athrun smirked. "However, this is a vastly improved version of the original Justice Gundam, this is the Infinite Justice Gundam."

As he finished speaking, Athrun's body seemed to vanish into thin air. An instant later, the Infinite Justice's eyes flashed with a bright green light. Durandal watched in horrified silence as the Infinite Justice opened its right hand, aiming its palm at the fallen Savior Gundam.

Within the cockpit of the Infinite Justice Gundam, Athrun smirked as he transfered a copy of Celestial Being's mobile doll system over to the Savior Gundam's computers.

"That's impossible!" Durandal gasped as the Savior Gundam's eyes suddenly flashed with a bright green light and the machine's Phase Shift armor lit up, the armor changing color from dull grey to a brillant red. Durandal could only stare as the two machines sped out of the hanger with a flash of exhaust.

Five beam blasts suddenly rained down, instantly destroying five of the amphibious Ash mobile suits which had now surrounded the mansion owned by Lacus Clyne. As the smoke cleared, the Calamity, Forbidden and Raider Gundams landed between the mansion and the ZAFT mobile suits. Forbidden boosted forward, slicing three mobile suits in half with one stroke. Raider spun its spherical breaker and smashed one suit into oblivion. One of the few remaining ZAFT machines charged towards Calamity, its beam claws activating. Calamity fired its Scylla cannon, blasting the suit backwards and destroying it.

The mobile suit commander turned and saw another Gundam emerge from the mansion, opening a pair of brightly glowing, pure white wings. "What the hell is that…?" Divinity lunged, drawing a beam saber, and sliced off the suit's arms. The other stabbed at Divinity with its beam claw. Divinity dodged the strike and flipped the mobile suit over, sending it crashing down on top of its ally.

"Oh no you don't!" Kira's voice roared as the commander entered a number into a keypad, but to his shock, nothing happened. "I've completely disabled your self-destruct system. Surrender, do it now!" Kira looked over his shoulder to where his radar had suddenly picked up a new threat, only to groan. The Minerva had just arrived. "Why, hello there, Talia Gladys." Kira sighed, after forcing open a communications line to the winged warship of ZAFT. "Or should I say; Via Hibiki?"

"I don't go by that name anymore, Kira." Talia replied.

"Via Hibki," Kira smirked as he pulled the infomation up on one of his subscreens and began to forcibly copy it over to the Minerva's computers, the information displaying on every computer screen onboard the ZAFT warship. "Biological mother of Cagalli Yula Athha, Hope Yamato, Rey Za Burrel, and Kira Yamato."

Everything stopped when the Verde Buster suddenly appeared, pearched on a nearby cliff, beam cannon aimed at the Divinity Gundam. Everyone watched in horror as the pilot of the Verde Buster fired his beam cannon. The beam hit Divinity in the back, and the angelic machine was suddenly a fireball.

The pilot of the Verde Buster split his beam rifles, laughing, and turned to aim at the Minvera. Suddenly, Divinity boosted out of the fireball, both wings missing, the machine now wielding a pair of massive physical swords, both of which were legendary.

The blade in the Divinity's right hand was known as Soul Calibur, while the blade in the machine's left hand was Soul Calibur's counterpart; Soul Edge.

Kira screamed in rage as he lashed out and slashed at the Verde Buster with Soul Calibur, and the pilot screamed as the blue crystaline blade passed through his midsection.

Everyone on the Minerva's bridge stared in shock at the now wingless Divinity Gundam as it stood motionless on the shoreline.

"ZAFT warship Minerva, you must confirm something; are you my enemy?" Kira asked as the Divinity's wings regenerated with a nearly blindingly bright flash of orange light.

A moment after the machine's angelic wings had regenerated, the sky split as a single Skygraper flew overhead, dropping a pair of Striker Packs; a Sword Striker and a Launcher Striker. The Minerva's crew watched in silent awe as the two Striker Packs activated laser locks and docked with the angelic Gundam, further augmenting its already impressive firepower.

Kira allowed an annoyed sigh to escape his lips as he brought both of his long-range cannons to bear, aiming them at the Minerva. "ZAFT warship Minerva, please reply or you will be eliminated."

"We are under orders from Chairman Durandal to maintian peace, Kira." Talia replied. "We are not you enemy."

Kira simply smirked as ten of his DRAGOON units swung to the end of the machine's wings, and a field of rainbow colored energy spanned between each wing, as the Divinity's eyes turned purple, flashing.

Inside the cockpit, Kira's pupils seperated into a trio of close-knit mini-pupils, his opals turning multicolor at the edges, extending the spectrum of his vision. In the same instant, a blindingly bright yellow glow illuminated the cockpit as Kira once more began to speak, his voice now completely devoid of emotion. "ZAFT warship Minerva has been found guilty of promoting conflict. Commencing destruction."

"Kira!" Taila yelled, even as the winged warship turned away and ignited its engines. "We are not your enemy!"

The only response she received was the Divinity taking to the sky, unfolding its plasma cannons and rail guns, before then unleashing a full-burst from its weapons. To everyone's surprise, the shots missed, striking the surface of the ocean just off the Minerva's bow, throwing up a huge wall of water. The winged warship plowed through the wall of water, only to see a huge pure white cross of energy explode out of the ocean directly ahead, forcing them to slow down. As the cross of energy dissipated, the Divinty Gundam took it's place, hovering in front of the winged warship, now weilding a pair of twin buster rifles, both of the weapons aimed directly at the ZAFT warship.

"ZAFT warship Minerva, this is your fiinal offer; join Celestial Being or die." Kira growled, as the Excalibur dropped its phase cloak, the massive dagger-shaped vessel seemingly appearing out of thin air, the sudden appearance of the huge ship, stunning the Minerva's crew further into silence.

The crew of the Minerva continued to watch in horror as the Excalibur's primary weapons bay opened, revealing millions of bombs. Out of the ten-million weapons currently in the weapons bay, five-million were freefall bombs, and the other five-million were percision guided bombs.

The ordnance within the bombs themselves currently consisted of one-million conventional warhead bombs, one-million thermobaric bombs, one-million nuclear bombs, one-million neutron bombs, one-million electromagnetic bombs, one-million smoke bombs, one-million stink bombs, one-million quantum bombs, and one-million antimatter bombs.

"Target; ZAFT warship Minerva, locked on." Hope spoke from the weapons station on the Excalibur's bridge.

As the weapons bay opened, the voice of Lacus Clyne echoed throughout the ship, clearing multiple aircraft for simultanious takeoff from the aircraft hanger deck. "Mobius and Yellow Squadrons, you are both cleared for immediate takeoff. Strigon and Hammerhead Squadrons, please taxi to the catapults and standby for takeoff clearance."

The Excalibur shuddered ever so slightly as the catapults fired, launching the aircraft of Mobious Squadron and Yellow Squadron from the ship.

Both the Yellow and Strigon Squadrons consisted of thirteen Su-33D Super Flankers, whereas the Mobius Squadron, consisted of eight F/A-22 Raptors and the Hammerhead Squadron consisted of fifteen B-52H Stratofortresses.

The Super Flankers of Yellow Squadron bore a digital camouflage sceheme with yellow wingtips, while Strigon Squadron's Super Flankers posessed a black and red color scheme, with blood red wingtips. The F/A-22 Raptors of Mobius Squadron posessed a grey camouflage scheme, while the B-52H Stratofortresses of Hammerhead Squadron bore an aquatic camouflage scheme.

As was standard for all of Celestial Being's combat weapons, the aircraft had been upgraded. All of the aircraft in the hanger now possessed Mirror Coated Phase Shift armor, the standard machine guns had been replaced with beam machine guns and each of the aircraft, including the reconnisance planes, had been equipped with a rearward firing scattering beam gun.

"Hammerhead and Strigon Squadrons, you're both cleared for takeoff." Lacus annocuned as the catapults fired, once again causing the Excalibur to shudder ever so slightly, as the aircraft of Hammerhead Squadron and Strigon Squadron were flung from the ship.

After a moment, Lacus continued to issue directions to the dozens of aircraft which were still waiting for clearance to takeoff. "Valkyrie and Rapier Squadrons, you are both cleared for takeoff. Rapier Squadron is to fly escort for Valkyrie Squadron."

As the aircraft continued to launch from the massive vessel hanging overhead, quickly forming a defensive formation around the Excalibur, the Minerva suddenly shuddered as a transparent blue tractor beam fired from the underside of the Excalibur, instantly grabbing the winged warship of ZAFT and lifting it vertically out of the water.

"Break us free!" Talia shouted, her shock subsiding and her training once more asserting itself. The Minerva's engines quickly roared to full afterburner, huge blue flames leaping from the engine exhausts, but even with the afterburners, the ship didn't budge.

"We can't break free!" One of the bridge crew shouted, even as the aircraft which had been launched from the Excalibur began to circle omniously overhead. "What the hell? Our wings are retracting!"

Kira silently watched from the cockpit of the Divinity Gundam, as the Minerva's wings folded into the sides of the ship as it was inexorably drawn towards the Excalibur's now open hanger bay. A moment later, the winged warship of ZAFT rose into the spacious hanger bay. As it rose into the hanger, the Minerva shuddered as it was grabbed by a pair of massive clamps and moved deeper into the hanger.

As the ZAFT warship was moved deeper into the hanger, the aircraft, which had been launched mostly as a deterent, began to return.


	33. False Gundams Part 1

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 33**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

"Hello, Talia Gladys, captain of the ZAFT warship Minerva." Murrue Ramius smiled as the captain of the now captured ZAFT warship stood across the table from her.

"And you are?" Talia asked.

"I'm Murrue Ramius, former captain of the Archangel." The marigold-eyed woman politely answered. "Although now; I command this vessel; the warship Excalibur." Murrue paused for a moment, then she continued. "Captain Gladys, I know who you really are."

"And who exactly am I then?" Talia challenged.

"You are Via Hibiki, biological mother of Cagalli Yula Athha and Kira Yamato." Murrue replied, smiling as a slightly shocked expression crossed the other woman's features.

Both women jumped when they suddenly heard a muffled explosion; the lights flickered briefly, then the shockwave shuddered through the ship.

_'Lacus, what the hell was that?'_ Murrue asked, speaking telepathically.

"We have a minor hull breach and fire in hanger bay three," Lacus's voice spoke from the intercom. "Fire suppression systems activated before the fire could do any harm, and there is no danger to any of our aircraft, mobile suits or battleships. Emergency force fields are holding."

"Keep me posted." Murrue sighed.

"Yes, ma'am." Lacus replied.

Murrue was just about to continue speaking with the Captain of the Minerva, when an automated warning interrupted her. "Warning, the Excalibur will be commencing a dimensional jump in ten seconds. All hands are to brace for possible damage and combat."

"I want to know exactly why the ship made a dimensional jump, not to mention when and where we are!" Murrue shouted as she sprinted onto the bridge a few minutes later.

"We appear to be in a completely diffrent timelime." Lacus answered. "One which we've never encountered before called the Universal Century."

"Wonderful." Murrue sarcastically replied.

Lacus glanced down at her screen when the sensors suddenly detected a ship approaching. As an image of the ship appeared on the main screen a few seconds later, Kira struggled to contain his laughter as he spoke. "The inhabitants of this universe call that thing a warship?"

The ship on the screen had a similar color scheme to the Archangel, but was much less aerodynamic and much boxier in appearance.

"Ma'am." Lacus once again spoke. "A single mobile suit is launching from the ship."

"That thing looks like a Strike Dagger." Kira muttered as he rose from his seat and moved towards the door. "I'm taking the Divinity Gundam out."

Before being moved to the centerline catapult, the Divinity had been loaded with as many weapons as it could possibly carry. In addition to its standard weapons the angelic machine now possessed a pair of twin buster rifles on its back, a pair of beam rifles on its hips. In addition to the hand-carried weapons, the Divinity also sported a few weapons from the original Strike Gundam, specifically the combo-weapons pod from the Launcher Striker Pack on its left shoulder, as well as the forearm-mounted rocket anchor from the Sword Striker Pack, on its left forearm. Even with all of these optional armaments, the Divinity Gundam was still fully capable of transforming into its flight mode, although it could not utilize its mobile armor attack mode, nor its "Scylla" 580mm high energy beam cannon.

"Kira." Lacus asked as the Divinity Gundam was moved to the catapult. "Don't you think it might be a better idea to use Stargazer?"

The Divinity shuddered as it dropped into the catapult, and Kira smirked. "Lacus, Stargazer has no weapons. If I were to come under attack, I wouldn't be able to defend myself." He paused for a moment before announcing. "Kira Yamato, Divinity; launching!"

As the Divinity cleared the catapult, the unknown ship opened up on him with a pair of beam cannons, while the mobile suit opened fire with its beam rifle. Kira narrowed his eyes as he ignited his GN field, blocking the blasts.

"Unknown machines identified." The Divinity Gundams's compter spoke a few seconds later, even as the specifications of the mobile suit and its mothership appeared on one of the sub-screens within the cockpit. "Earth Federation Forces Pegasus-class warship SCV-70/LMSD-71 White Base, and mobile suit RX-78-2 Gundam."

Kira simply smirked as he forced open a communications line to the white mobile suit and its mothership, both of which were now being displayed as enemies. "Attention; crew of the Earth Federation Forces Pegasus-class warship SCV-70/LMSD-71 White Base, pilot of the mobile suit RX-78-2 Gundam." Kira spoke. "Please cease all combat operations immediately, or you will be found guilty of promoting conflict and will be eliminated."

Before anyone could reply, a red mobile suit streaked at the Gundam, slamming into the white mobile suit with its left shoulder. As the Gundam went tumbling, the Divinity's computer spoke again, this time identifying the newly arrived mobile suit. "Principality of Zeon mass-production mobile suit; MS-06S Zaku II Commander Type."

"Let's see if they even stand a chance against Celestial Being." Kira grinned as he unleashed his DRAGOON units, swarming them around the red Zaku and opening fire. Much to Kira's amusment, the first beam blast struck the Zaku in the left shoulder, causing a chain reaction of explosions which engulfed the crimson machine an instant later.

"Wow." Hope Yamato's voice spoke through the communications line after a few seconds of silence. "That was quite a pathetic mobile suit."

"Yeah it was." Kira laughed as the Divinity moved back towards the Excalibur. "Even ZAFT's GINNs don't completely explode when hit in the shoulder."

"Hope, lock all weapons onto that so-called Gundam and its mothership." Kira ordered as he strode onto the Excalibur's bridge a few moments later. Hope nodded, eager to destroy the poor excuse for a Gundam. "Fire!" The amethyst-eyed man roared.

Instantly, the Excalibur opened up with all of its weapons, completely obliterating both the mobile suit and its mothership with a hellish barrage consisting of billions upon billions of machine gun rounds, anti-aircraft shells and various beam blasts. Even the Sun Crusher cannons and World Devastator cannons were unleashed upon the two patheticly underpowered machines which were now in the Excalibur's midst.

"Cease fire." Kira finally ordered once the explosions had completely faded. "Cagalli, turn the Excalibur towards the Earth." The amethyst-eyed man grinned. "Hope, prime the World Devastator cannons for another volley. Cagalli, after we fire, I want to leave this pathetic universe."

Cagalli nodded, and the Excalibur quickly rotated so that its bow faced towards the Earth. "All World Devastator cannons are fully charged." Hope answered as the ship stopped rotating, its bow facing directly towards the blue sphere far below.

"Fire!" Kira smirked, and with a blinding flash, more than 100 beam blasts erupted from the Excalibur's bow, screaming towards the planet and impacting with a blood red flash of light. Within ten short seconds, the entire planet had been reduced to a massive ball of molten rock. With that done, the Excalibur's jump drives flared with a bright blue light, the massive ship speeding into the distance before vanishing with a bright flash of pure white light.


	34. False Gundams Part 2

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 34**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

As the Divinity Gundam flew over the devastated city of Rome, Kira spotted a white mobile suit kneeling among the ruins of multiple skyscrapers. Suddenly, the machine slowly rose as if it was waking from a long sleep, its eyes flashing with a bright green light.

"GUNDAM FIGHT SET! READY! GO!" A pair of pilots yelled in unison as their Gundams launched at each other. Neros Gundam swung its ax at Shining Gundam, but the white mobile suit was more agile and swiftly avoided the attack. Neros was left open to an attack and Domon quickly took the opportunity by striking it in the face. Neros fell back a few steps while Michelo was astonished by with the mobile suit's speed and power.

"STOP FIGHTING!" Kira Yamato's voice roared through the open-channel communications line, as he transformed the Divinity into its mobile suit mode and launched his DRAGOON units, even before his Mirage Colloid stealth system had fully deactivated.

The newly arrived mobile suit landed between Shining and Neros Gundams, and Shining Gundam stood up from the ground and stared at the mysterious Gundam.

"Who are you?" Asked the bewildered Domon Kasshu as he looked at the angelic mobile suit.

"I am Kira Jesus Yamato." Kira spoke, his voice now monotone. "I am the one you call God." As the amethyst-eyed man finished speaking, the Divinity Gundam's DRAGOON units swooped in from above. The two pilots were able to dodge most of the remote weapons, but eventually, the Neros Gundam was overpowered, as nearly a dozen of the Divinity's DRAGOONs suddenly swarmed it, quickly severing the Neros Gundam arms, legs and head, leaving the machine to crumble to the ground in five separate pieces.

The Shining Gundam quickly opened up with its shoulder-mounted machine guns, but the bullets bounced harmlessly off the Divinity's advanced armor.

"Pathetic." Kira smirked as he returned the gesture with his own chest-mounted machine cannons, the rounds pinging loudly off the Shining Gundam's armor, but still doing considerable damage, even after the machine had moved into a defensive stance. As the Divinity Gundam continued to pelt the Shining Gundam with machine cannon rounds, the DRAGOON units which formed its angelic wings, once again docked on the Divinity's back.

As soon as the Divinity had stopped firing, the massive form of the warship Excalibur appeared overhead. Domon stared in awe and horror at the massive dagger-shaped ship as it silently floated high above him.

"Wha-what is that thing?" The pilot of the Shining Gundam asked, before once more returning his attention to to the Divinity Gundam.

"That," Kira answered, pointing at the huge vessel. "Is the Celestial Being mothership; Excalibur."

"What is Celestial Being?" Domon asked.

"We are a private armed organization which is dedicated to eliminating all conflict." The amethyst-eyed man replied as his machine began to glow with a bright red light. "Domon Kasshu, you and your fellow Gundam Fighters are guilty of promoting war and must be eliminated."

"Kira." Suddenly, the voice of Lacus Clyne spoke through the communications line. "Our sensors have detected hundreds of local law enforcement vehicles and mobile suits coming towards you. We can't allow innocent civilians to become involved in our armed interventions. Divinity, you are hereby ordered to abort your current mission and return to the Excalibur."

"Understood, Lacus." Kira answered. "Divinity is aborting mission and returning to base." Domon silently watched as the Divinity Gundam ignited its thrusters, quickly taking to the air before then transforming into its flight mode and pulling into a nearly vertical climb.

Emerging from the dark clouds to the light of day, the Divinity Gundam gleamed like a new car. By looking at it one would never guess that only five minutes ago, it was involved in a Gundam Fight, one in which it had completely dominated two opponents at the same time.

The Divinity Gundam banked left, sharp contrails coming from the tips of its brightly glowing wings, as the machine entered a holding pattern above the Excalibur.

"This is Divinity." Kira calmly spoke throught the communications line. "I am currently in a holding pattern above the centerline launch bay. Requesting landing clearance"

"Divinity, this is Excalibur." Lacus answered as the doors protecting the centerline catapult opened. "You are cleared for landing. Welcome back."

"Thanks, Lacus." Kira smiled as he transformed his machine into its mobile suit mode, carefully touching down in the hanger and moving the Divinity to its assigned cubicle.

Cagalli Yula Athha had seen many things that had left her speechless, but the sight before her had stolen her words for all the wrong reasons. Standing tall and proud, with the gantry lowered to accommodate motion, the Divinity Gundam had its arm lifted, with its middle digit raised in a most conspicuous salute.

"Yes!" Kira's triumphantly cried from inside the cockpit. "It works!"

Standing next to Cagalli on the gantry, Lacus could only bury her face in the palm of her hand. "Ah yes, the mighty flipping of the bird. Truly a combat necessity."

"Hey, come on, Lacus!" Kira shouted, leaping out of the cockpit. "Can't I have some fun!" He pointed vindictively at Cagalli. "Cagalli, you're impressed, right?"

Cagalli stared back up at the Divinity's outstretched arm for a moment; truly a stupendous sight, to see something as imposing as a mobile suit acting so childishly.

"It's, um, hard to find words." She offered.

"Ha!" Kira roared, pointing again at Lacus. "See?"

"Yeah, well, it's hard to find words while you're watching an auto accident too," Lacus shot back.

"You're just jealous!" Kira smirked. "I bet Cagalli wants this programming script! Right?"

"N-Not really," Cagalli answered, to a crestfallen Kira. "I'd, um, rather not provoke my enemies if I don't have to."

"Now come on!" Kira wailed. "This isn't provoking them! It's stating your superiority in clear and undeniable terms!" He gestured up towards the Divinity's darkened eyes. "I mean, it's one thing to have a Gundam flying towards you with its guns all warmed up and murder in its eyes; but it's another thing entirely to see that Gundam flying towards you and it's giving you the finger! It's how you know that you're truly and totally fucked!"

Cagalli considered that image for a moment. "I think I'd rather let my reputation do that." She answered.

"Besides, I think we're all a little more concerned with not getting killed in combat than making obscene gestures during combat." Lacus added.

"That's because you keep forgetting that we can not be killed," Kira concluded, crossing his arms defiantly. "Anyways, just you wait. I have way more scripts planned than just this one. Like that teabag script."

"Oh hell no," Lacus groaned. "You are not programming the Divinity to teabag."

"It's my Gundam!" Kira replied.

"Hey look, we're in the news!" Mayu laughed, as she brought up an article on the auxiliary screen. "Angelic Gundam denounces Gundam Fight, vows to destroy humanity unless fighting stops!"

In the captain's chair, Murrue wrinkled her nose. "Our mission is to eradicate all confilct, not eliminate humanity!"

"Yeah, well, they report, you decide," Mayu scoffed. "They're really working overtime trying to scare the shit out of people about us."

"Well, it's comforting to know that we can make people soil themselves." Hope spoke up.

"All hands, level one battlestations!" The computer suddenly announced, as main lights went out, only to be replaced by the steady red pulsing of the combat lighting, as kaxlons blared throughout the ship.

"The best part of being in Celestial Being is having to fight everybody who insists on fighting for any reason!" Hope screamed, as the Excalibur's cadre of pilots raced for their machines. At the Divinity's cockpit hatch, Kira found Murdoch shouting orders at a handful of other mechanics, with the whole hangar in a frenzy as the Gundams began to come to life.

"Are we really being attacked already?" He asked, even as he threw himself into his Gundam's cockpit and strapped himself in.

"Yeah, we aren't real good with that whole 'pacafism' idea," Arthur Trine, whom had formerly been the Minerva's weapons officer, answered. "Right now we have no extra weapons, but during the battle we can prepare a Cattus rifle for you or something. But we'll have to launch it from the centerline catapult, so you'd have to catch it in midair."

"I should be fine with this," Kira replied. "I'm going."

Arthur ran back, and the gantry slid out of the Divinity's path. Even as he guided his Gundam to the portside catapult, he could see the dim shapes of his foes; a desperate collection of mobile suits, armored vehicles, and helicopters.

"Okay, kids," Meyrin said, as the Divinity shuddered and dropped into the catapult, "we've got a whole lot of shit directly ahead of us, and two more groups of enemies at 4 o'clock. Sound like fun? Of course it does. Divinity, you're clear for launch."

Kira steeled himself. "Kira Yamato, Divinity; launching!"

As soon as the Divinity had cleared the catapult, a hail of bullets harmlessly ricocheted off its armor, and Kira scowled at the sight which met his eyes. The Shining Gundam, now equipped with a beam rifle and riding atop a subflight lifter.

The Shining Gundam seized a pair of beam sabers and hurled them at the Divinity Gundam. Kira scowled and cut the glowing blades out of the air with his beam sword, backing away as they exploded. The Shining Gundam roared out of the smoke, lunging after the Divinity with a scream from its pilot. "So, you're Kira Yamato, the Ultimate Coordinator!" Domon shouted as the Shining and Divinity Gundams clashed, the Divinity deflecting the Shining Gundam's horizontal slash.

"All of you..!" Kira snapped, surging forward and pushing the Shining Gundam back. Domon scowled, drawing his beam rifle. Kira came back down with another beam saber slash, slicing the Shining Gundam's beam rifle in two. Domon hissed a curse under his breath, abandoning it and drawing fanother beam saber. "You are all guilty of promoting conflict!" Kira charged forwards, firing a full weapons burst. Domon ducked under the plasma cannon blasts, but the railgun shells slammed into the Shining Gundam and sent him staggering backwards. "STOP THIS POINTLESS FIGHTING!"

The clash of two beam sabers slamming together sent another ripple of energy up his spine, and Domon Kasshu gunned the booster to charge. The Shining Gundam curled its fingers menacingly around its beam saber, and ahead of him, the Divinity seemed to tense, awaiting Domon's attack.

The two Gundams burst apart, and Domon fired back with a beam cannon burst. The twin green bursts of energy tore forward, but the Divinity deftly dodged, flipping upwards in midair and firing its plasma cannons. Domon ducked aside, growling, and fired back again with his beam cannons before roaring forward at top speed, but the Divinity dodged again, and the two beam sabers met with a crash. Domon let out a curse.

The Divinity rocketed forward, bringing its saber down towards the Shining Gundam. Domon screamed back, deflecting the Divinity's blow horizontally.

"For all the people you've killed!" Domon screamed. "I can't forgive you, Kira Yamato! I won't let you kill anymore!" His eyes flashed. "_I'LL KILL YOU FIRST!_"

"Well then, DO IT FAGGOT!" Kira shrieked, as the two Gundams jetted apart, circling each other. Kira charged, brandishing his saber. Domon lunged back towards him, and the two Gundams crashed together again, straining in midair against each other.

Domon stabbed forward with the Shining Gundam's saber. Kira ducked under the saber, and with a scream, sliced off the Shining Gundam's arm at the elbow with his own saber. Domon cursed under his breath, ignoring the pain as he backed away to draw his last remaining saber.

Kira brought his saber down. Domon deflected it horizontally with a shower of sparks. Screaming, Kira smacked the Shining Gundam's arm upward, and with lightning swiftness, severed the Shining Gundam's left arm at the shoulder. Domon's eyes widened in disbelief, before he could react, Kira fired a point-blank plasma cannon burst into the Shining Gundam's subflight lifter, blowing it apart. With a final devastating kick to the Shining Gundam's stomach, he sent Domon careening out of the air, and with a shriek, went charging after him.

"I couldn't even scratch him!" Domon exclaimed, easing up the Shining Gundam's dying engines and slamming into the ground at an angle, skidding to a halt in the snow. He popped the hatch and vaulted out of the Shining Gundam's cockpit, just as the Divinity landed and drove its saber into the Shining Gundam's back. Domon broke into a sprint as soon as his feet hit the ground, the Shining Gundam exploded, and Domon screamed as he went flying across the snow.

As he skidded to a halt, lying prone on the snow, he watched the flaming wreckage that was once the Shining Gundam burn. The Divinity straightened up, put away its saber, switched to its beam rifle, and took off. Domon watched it go, tears in his eyes.


	35. False Gundams Part 3

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 35**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

The Divinity Gundam, in its mobile armor attack mode, grabbed the Master Gundam in its claws. Kira smirked as he squeezed the mobile suit, crushing its body.

"Oops…I broke this one!" Kira said, laughing. "Someone bring me another one!" A pair of Devil Gundam mass production mobile suits fired at him. "You'll do!"

He fired his Scylla cannon, and the beam pierced one of the tan mobile suits as the other tried to dodge the blast, but was unprepared for the curving nature of the beam and was hit too.

"Ha! This is too easy!" Kira laughed as he transformed the Divinity back into its mobile suit mode. "I'm starting to wonder if this so-called 'Devil Gundam' really exists, or if it's nothing more than a myth or rumor."

As if on cue, the ground began to violently rumble before splitting a moment later to reveal the massive form of the Devil Gundam.

"So, this is what everyone in this universe is so afraid of?" Kira scoffed. "I'll grant that it is a very ugly and pathetic machine. However, it is quite obviously rooted to the ground." The amethyst-eyed man smirked as he continued. "And even if it does somehow manage to hit me, which I doubt will happen, my armor will either block the shots or reflect them."

Kira watched with mild amusement as the machine below him opened fire. The amethyst-eyed man chuckled within the Divinity's cockpit as he effortlessly dodged the searing beam blasts, leaving them to slam harmlessly into the Excalibur's positron reflector shields.

"Excalibur." Kira called, even as he continued to effortlessly dodge the continous hail of beam blasts. "Hit that shitty thing with the EMP cannons. We are going to disable and capture it!" A few seconds later, the Devil Gundam suddenly lost all power, having been hit with 1,250 electro-magnetic pulses simultaniously.

Five days had passed without any combat, and from where he currently stood, more than a mile from ground level, on the Excalibur's sundeck, Kira Yamato could see for dozens of miles. The entire valley was spread out beneath and around him, the only things limiting his vision being the sheer bulk of the mountains bordering the valley which the Excalibur was now hovering above.

After a few moments of silence, Cagalli walked out onto the sundeck. The blonde smiled slightly as she walked up behind Kira, gently wrapping her arms around him and sighing. "You know, we've deteced a large, uninhabited island in the South Pacific."

"Let me guess, Cagalli." The amethyst-eyed man smiled. "You want us to go there and re-establish the Orb Union in this timeline."

"Mmhmm." Cagalli quietly answered.

"No, not in this timeline." Kira replied, causing tears to well up in Cagalli's beautiful, golden eyes. "I'm sorry, Cagalli, but this timeline is much too violent. As if that wasn't bad enough, the Gundam Pilots in this universe are far too pig-headed and stupid to understand what it means to have a world without war."

"There's always the option of going back to the Cosmic Era." The voice of Lacus Clyne said as the pink-haired beauty walked out onto the sundeck.

"That's true." Cagalli agreed.

The conversation was cut short, however, when alarms began to blare and an automated message boomed from the intercom system, "All hands, level one battlestations! Unknown mobile suits and ships approaching!"

Inside the Divinity Gundam, Kira snapped his eyes to the right and immediately hurled his mobile suit backward, dodging a huge pulsing beam from the ocean's surface. There was a ship down there, a lone battleship flinging machine gun rounds and beam fire into the sky, under the escort of four Nobusshi mobile suits.

On the ship's bridge, the captain of the Veracruz leapt out of his seat and pointed furiously at the angelic Gundam and its shimmering wings of light. Since it had arrived, that thing had taken out hundreds of mobile suits, not to mention two Gundam Fighters, but perhaps with enough firepower... "Shoot that thing down! All missiles, fire!"

The world shook as the Veracruz fired its entire complement of missiles towards the Divinity. Kira narrowed his eyes at the projectiles as they came closer, and a white flash split the air, and the captain of the Veracruz could only stare in disbelief as the Divinity swung its left arm skyward and the missiles arced up towards the sun.

"There's no way he could have done that!" He screamed. "That was thirty-two missiles! How could they have all failed at once?" The Divinity's eyes flashed and the Gundam charged. The captain backed away in horror. "The Nobusshis! Get David's team here!"

With a burst of exhaust, the four Nobusshis put themselves between the Veracruz and the Divinity, letting loose a withering salvo of firepower. Kira ground his teeth and snarled at them.

"Are you not afraid enough?" He growled, and with a crash, he rammed his saber through the cockpit of the first one; the second one lined itself up for a beam cannon blast, only for the Divinity to hurl its broken comrade at it and let them both die in a fiery explosion; the third darted away from the blast, only to be chopped in two by the Divinity's beam saber. The last one leveled off both its guns and opened fire, only for the Divinity to effortlessly swat aside the beams and plow its saber through the Nobusshi's chest.

Down below, the Veracruz's captain gasped as the Divinity blasted out of the smoke and kept coming.

"SHOOT THAT THING DOWN!"

Kira glowered down at the desperate warship, the horror from its bridge washing over him. "Well?" One of the ship's beams came streaking towards him, only for the Divinity to bat aside the blast with its beam saber. "Don't you guys fear me?"

The Divinity shook as it ducked aside from another cannon blast, and Kira's eyes flashed in fury as he saw his opportunity.

"Then I'll _make_ you fear me!"

With a scream of thrusters and twisting metal, the Divinity somersaulted over the next salvo and came smashing down onto the Veracruz's deck, stabbing cleanly through its beam cannon and ripping it off in a cloud of fire. The black Gundam paused for an instant to glower into the ship's bridge, before rocketing off the wounded ship's deck, just as the ship's own missiles came pounding back onto the Veracruz from above, and the vessel disappeared beneath a thunderous explosion.

In the sky, with the Divinity's beam wings shining in the sun, Kira watched as the lives on the Veracruz vanished, and turned his eyes towards his next target.

"This is what your interpretation of mercy looks like!" The Divinity Gundam itself screamed as it once again ignited its thrusters and flew off. After a few seconds of silence, the Excalibur flew omniously overhead, before dropping a pair of antimatter bombs, the weapons completely obliterating any remaining machines and killing any survivors.

"Akatsuki, Chimera, Destiny, Impulse, Strike Freedom, please proceed to the catapult." The computer's voice spoke through the hanger bay, and the five machines quickly proceeded to their desiginated launch catapults and locked themselves into launch position. "Buster, Eclipse, Infinite Justice, Twilight, 00-Riser, please standby."

Shinn Asuka smirked within the cockpit of the GN-000DE Eclipse Gundam, which had been previously known as the GN-000D Destiny Gundam. "I have to agree with Kira's choice of actions this time." Shinn said. "These people think that they can prevent wars by fighting."

"I agree as well." Lunamaria Hawke replied from within the cockpit of the ZGMF-X42T Twilight Gundam. "It's as Lacus has said; fighting only breeds more fighting."

"After we either end the fighting, or if worse comes to worst; destroy this instance of humanity." Luna hesitated for a few seconds before continuing. "You and I will get married."

Shinn nodded as he replied. "Personally, I would rather not have to destroy humanity on my wedding day."

"Well then, Shinn." Luna smiled. "Think of that as motivation for helping to eliminate war."

Just as Luna had finished speaking, the Excalibur shuddered slightly as the Akatsuki, Destiny, Impulse, Infinite Justice and Strike Freedom Gundams were all launched simultaneously.

"Cagalli Yula Athha, Akatsuki. Taking off!"

"Lacus Clyne, Chimera. Taking off!"

"Hope Yamato, Destiny. Launching!"

"Mayu Asuka, Impulse. Heading out!"

"Murrue Ramius, Strike Freedom. Heading out!"

As the five machines moved into formation around the Divinity Gundam, the computer spoke again. "Buster, Eclipse, Infinite Justice, Twilight, 00-Riser, please proceed to the catapult." The five Gundams remaining in the hanger quickly proceeded to their desiginated launch catapults and locked themselves into launch position.

"Lunamaria Hawke, Twilight. Taking off!"

"Shinn Asuka, Eclipse. Launching!"

"Athrun Zala, Infinite Justice. Heading out!"

"Dearka Elsman, Buster. Taking off!"

"Setsuna F. Seiei, 00-Riser. Heading out!"

As the Buster, Eclipse, Infinite Justice, Twilight and 00-Riser quickly moved into formation, directly behind the Divinity's own formation, the other Gundams and mobile suits quickly launched from the Excalibur.

As the other machines formed up, the Akatsuki, Impulse, Chimera and Strike Freedom all glanced towards the Divinity. They weren't sure why, but Kira's lovers could all sense something eminating from him which they had never felt before; pure hatred.


	36. Temporary Insanity

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 36**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

"Are you alright, Kira?" Lacus asked as the Chimera Gundam carefully pulled alongside the Divinity Gundam.

"Yeah." Kira replied, too quickly for the blue-eyed beauty's comfort. "I'm fine, Lacus."

"Shit!" Domon Kasshu shouted, as his recently aquired God Gundam rattled. He raised his shield to deflect another beam shot as the crimson Aegis Gundam went back on the offensive. "How the hell can he do so well in such an old machine?"

The Aegis stormed in with an ignited beam saber and the mobile suits met in a shower of sparks. Domon's eyes widened as his eyes caught sight of a stylized tiger's head stamped onto the Aegis Gundam's left shoulder armor. He'd seen that emblem before; that was the Desert Tiger!

"No way!" Domon snarled, pushing back against the Aegis and forcing it back. He drew a beam saber, scowling at his opponent. "The Desert Tiger! Just my fucking luck!"

The Aegis Gundam charged again, and the God Gundam deflected its saber stroke with its shield, swinging back. The Aegis would not be taken down so easily and mirrored the white machine's move, leaving both mobile suits pushing helplessly against each other.

Domon narrowed his eyes at the Aegis and concentrated.

"Alright, Desert Tiger," he yelled. "Let's see you stand up to _THIS!_"

Domon pushed the Aegis forward with a blast from his Gundam's thrusters. As the Aegis tumbled backwards, out of the way, the white machine opened fire with its beam machine guns, and the Aegis immediately began to dodge for its life. Domon smirked, watching his foe dive this way and that, and charged towards it. The Aegis revved up its own saber and charged back, Domon saw a flash of yellow at the bottom of his field of vision, the God Gundam rattled as the mobile suits clashed.

Domon cursed as he realized that the Aegis had just torn a long gash across his Gundam's chest.

"Goddamn Tiger." He growled, spinning around to face the Aegis. It came charging in again, but Domon stopped it with another barrage from his beam machine guns, and the Aegis reverted to its mobile armor form and took off.

Still scowling, Domon took off after the Aegis.

"Stop fighting us, you stupid, warmongering jackass!" The voice of Kira Yamato shrieked, as the Divinty Gundam suddenly streaked by, passing less than three feet in front of the God Gundam, severing its head, arms and legs with a series of impossibly fast beam saber strokes.

After a moment of silence, the Excalibur's engines suddenly flared to life, the massive dagger-shaped ship slowly turning towards the Earth. As the Excalibur turned towards the blue sphere, an automated warning was broadcast throughout the ship and to all allied machines. "The Excalibur will commence orbital drop in five minutes. All hands must abandon ship immediately. There will be no further audio warning."

"What?" Kira's five lovers yelled in unison as the Excalibur once again ignited its engines and began to charge towards the blue planet.

"We have to stop it!" Lacus yelled.

"I'm already on it, Lacus." Hope replied, her fingers flying over the keyboard as she desprately attempted to hack into the Excalibur's computers. "Come on, come on! Got it!" The amethyst-eyed woman sighed a few moments later, smiling as she quickly canceled the orders for the massive ship to drop itself on the planet below.

"Kira's gone too far this time!" Athrun Zala roared as the Infinite Justice ignited its wings of light and charged at the Divinity, effortlessly batting the now disabled God Gundam out of the way.

The Divinity ignited the beam saber in its left wrist, slamming the brightly glowing, pure white energy blade down onto the Justice's own, pink beam blade with a shower of sparks. "Look at the way the world ended up!" Kira cried. "I fought and I suffered, and for all that, look where we are now!" His eyes flashed furiously. "For all that suffering, just look at me now! I'm not even _human_ anymore! How am I supposed to smile and wait with you, and wait with Lacus, for a new world that will _never come_!"

The Divinity charged again, Athrun scowled, switching to his twin beam saber and deflecting the Divinity's horizontal saber swipe. "Killing us all isn't the answer either!" He yelled back, somersaulting over the Divinity's head. Athrun whirled around, leg beam saber flashing to life, the Divinity was there to stop it with a beam saber blow, the blades pressing uselessly against each other. "Have you become that blind, Kira? The answer to people dying _is not to kill more people_!"

"Then what _is_ the answer?" Kira screamed back, kicking the Justice in the stomach and sending it reeling back. "You don't know the answer, because if you did we wouldn't be fighting each other!" The Divinity took off, saber pulled back for a finishing blow. "But I've found it, and I won't let you get in its way!"

The Justice shook as the Divinity's saber slammed down onto its beam shield. Athrun scowled, throwing the Divinity's arm aside and stabbing forward with his own saber. Kira deflected Athrun's saber with his own beam shield, charging forward and charging up his chest-mounted cannon.

"I've had _enough_ of this!" Kira shouted. "Just die already!"

Athrun somersaulted over the Divinity's head as Kira fired his temporal inversion cannon, the pure white beam blazing down underneath the Justice's feet. Athrun whirled around, swinging his saber towards the Divinity's back, but Kira stopped it with his beam shield, surging forward and throwing the Justice back. He switched to his beam rifles, raising them towards the Justice, but suddenly another mobile suit burst into his line of fire.

Kira's eyes widened in disbelief as a pink and red Chimera Gundam floated before him. It had no shield, not even a beam rifle, but it was still floating defiantly between him and the Justice. He raised the Divinity's right-hand beam rifle, pointing it at the Chimera's cockpit. In the Justice, Athrun cursed under his breath and ignited the booster to move closer.

The hatch opened, and everything stopped as Lacus Clyne stepped out in a pink Celestial Being flight suit.

"Kira!" She shouted. "Kira, why are you doing this? Why are you trying to destroy the world to ease your own pain?"

Kira watched her carefully.

"This isn't the way your wounds will ever be healed!" Lacus went on. "You are traveling down a path of misery! Stop this, Kira! This isn't the way to protect the world!" Kira narrowed his eyes at her. "Didn't we learn from GENESIS, from all of the conflicts we've stopped over the last few millenia? We can't make a future world by destruction! Dropping the Excalibur isn't going to purify the world! You're not protecting anyone like this! Kira!"

"Lacus, get back in the Chimera!" Athrun shouted. "Kira's going to-"

Kira scowled, his eyes flashing, his hands trembling.

The Divinity fired.

Lacus stared at the brightly glowing green beam shot, unsure of what to think, and an instant later she vanished in the Divinity's shot; the blast slammed into the Chimera's open cockpit, and a moment later, the Chimera was gone in the flash of a fireball.

Athrun's eyes widened in disbelief.

"LACUS!"

A green seed dropped through Athrun's mind, before detonating with a electrifying light that seemed to paralyze the entire universe, and the Justice took off with a roar towards the Divinity.

"Why?" Athrun demanded, bringing his saber down with a crash. "You even had to kill Lacus! How many more of us do you have to kill?"

"You've all just been getting in the way!" Kira growled.

The Justice rushed forward, slamming its saber down again on the Divinity's. "I will kill you, Kira!" Athrun swore. "I promise you, one way or another, _you will die_ for killing Lacus!"

"You can't stop me now!" Kira shot back, the Divinity rocketing away from the Justice. Athrun charged again, swinging his saber horizontally towards the Divinity, Kira shoved him back with a point-blank railgun blast. "Whether or not I live is meaningless! You can't stop what I've started here!"

"She was the evangel of peace!" Athrun screamed, storming down towards the Divinity with another saber blow. "She didn't lie to you!"

"Liar!" Kira screamed, surging back up towards the Justice. Athrun opened fire with his beam cannons, but the Divinity plowed through the shots with its beam shield, ramming the Justice with its shoulder, throwing crimson machine back. "I'll kill you!"

The Divinity combined its beam rifles, but before it could fire, the Justice took off. Kira growled angrily, deploying his DRAGOONs. The Justice came down with a saber swipe, but Kira charged back, pushing it against the burning hulk of a battleship. He swarmed his DRAGOONs around the wreck, spearing it on beam shots and blowing it apart. Athrun grunted in frustration as the world shook around him.

Kira's eyes flashed, as he recalled his DRAGOONs and took off.

As the fireball faded, Athrun glared up at the retreating Divinity, but he also noticed a pair of brightly glowing wings, those of the Eclipse Gundam, streaking towards the angelic form of the Divinity Gundam. Within the cockpit of the Eclipse Gundam, Shinn Asuka scowled, he was determined to continue the fight.

The Divinity fired a full burst; Kira scowled at the twisting and turning Eclipse Gundam. "Get the hell out of my way, Shinn!" He snapped.

The DRAGOONs flashed in again, and Shinn dove around them, watching the Divinity carefully. The Divinity opened fire with another full burst, as the DRAGOONs swarmed around the Eclipse.

"What good can you do here?" Kira cackled. "If you stop humantiy here, they'll just come back!" The Divinity fired its twin plasma cannons, spearing the Eclipse's beam rifle and knocking its shield off its arm. Shinn grunted in frustration, abandoning his beam rifle as it was torn apart by more DRAGOON fire.

The Divinity swept in with another full burst. Shinn backpedaled against the attack and swerved to avoid a flashing net of beam fire. He grunted as beam blasts landed against the Eclipse's beam shields.

Inside the Justice, Athrun looked on in disbelief at the wave of beam cannon blasts surrounding a cloud of the Eclipse's afterimages.

The Divinity lined up for a killing beam volley.

"Humanity will be punished!" Kira cried. "There will finally be meaning to our suffering! They brought themselves to this point, do not stand in the way of their own destruction!"

The Divinity unleashed a full burst, as its DRAGOONs swarmed around the Eclipse.

"Why do you keep fighting me?" Kira exclaimed. "I will change the world and end your suffering!" His eyes flashed. "I'll give meaning to your suffering!"

The Eclipse flashed to life, a blaze of beam wings wiped out four of the Divinity's DRAGOONs, and Kira drew back in surprise.

"This world does not belong to you, Kira!" Shinn screamed. The Eclipse darted forward, crushing two more DRAGOONs with its palm cannons. "Human beings are not your toys!" The Eclipse charged, obliterating three more DRAGOONs with its beam wings, and lunged up into the Divinity's face, destroying both its beam rifles with a savage twin palm cannon blow and knocking it back with a devastating kick to the chest. "Even if you are a god, you have _no right_ to decide my fate for me, Kira!" Shinn cried, as the Eclipse rocketed towards the Divinity, slicing the last two DRAGOONs out of the sky with its anti-ship sword. Kira opened fire with the Divinity's remaining weapons; the Eclipse dove out of the way and roared toward him.

Shinn's eyes flashed.

"This is the final war that will finally remake the world!" Kira shouted. The Gundams slammed together again; Kira forced them apart with a burst of thruster exhaust, and, eyes flashing, launched his DRAGOONs in a blaze of sapphire light. "Everyone will open their eyes! Everyone will see the blood they've spilled! Everyone will see the hatred in their hearts! And they will finally learn!"

"You think you're the only one who suffered?" Shinn screamed. "What about all the people you've killed?" The Eclipse lunged up above the Divinity and came down with a relentless sword stroke; the Divinity swung its saber horizontally to block it. "Don't tell me that you're going to make the world understand your pain to bring us peace! You've been shoving it back on everyone else!" The Eclipse swung its sword downward, sending the Divinity careening back; Shinn gave chase with a scream. "You're not going to save the world! You're going to make everyone suffer with you! You've gone crazy, Kira!"

"I will not let you tell me that I have to suffer again!" Kira screamed. The Divinity threw the Eclipse back with a forceful saber swing, swarming its DRAGOONs around the floundering Eclipse. Shinn scowled, drawing back behind his beam shield and letting his afterimages draw the DRAGOONs' fire. "I will not let you tell me that a world full of war is the only way we can have it!" The Divinity swung its saber again, Shinn blocked it with his beam shield. "I will _not_ let you tell me that I can't use my power!"

"You're just using it to kill, Kira!" Shinn screamed back, as the Eclipse surged, putting its force behind its sword and throwing the Divinity back. Kira growled, moving his DRAGOONs in, Shinn rocketed up towards the Divinity, kicking it in the face and sending it back.

The Eclipse came storming in close, only to see its killing slash spoiled by the Divinity's beam saber. Kira swarmed his DRAGOONs again, forcing the Eclipse back on the defensive, and turned towards Earth.

"I can survive atmospheric reentry," Kira grunted as he ignited his thrusters and dove towards the planet below. "Let's see if the same can be said of you!"

Kira ground his teeth and threw his machine through the Eclipse's web of firepower, even as the firey glow of reentry slowly faded. The Divinity whipped around, beam saber held high, and charged at the Eclipse, only for the target to dart aside, leaving the saber to slice through mere afterimages. Kira lunged to the right as the Eclipse reappeared an instant later, charging forward with a killing stab.

"That's it!" Kira roared as he backed away from his foe, and with exhaust blazing, eight of the Divinity's thirty-six DRAGOON units lifted off. "Don't mock me, you bastard!"

As the Divinity swarmed its DRAGOON units around the Eclipse, he noticed four mobile suits rapidly descending towards him, with the massive, dagger-shaped form of the Excalibur following close behind. With a flash of exhaust, the Akatsuki Gundam pulled ahead of the other three machines, charging towards the Divinity Gundam.

"Kira!" Cagalli screamed as the Akatsuki bashed the Eclipse out of the way before then clashing sabers with the angelic Gundam. "Why did you kill Lacus?"

"She's not dead, Cagalli." Kira replied, his voice now much calmer. "Lacus is onboard the Excalibur, she is perfectly safe. You keep forgetting that we can't be killed."

"That doesn't change the fact that you tried to kill her!" The blonde roared, unleashing her DRAGOON units and physically ramming the remote weapons into the Divinity, pushing it back.

A moment later, as the Akatsuki's DRAGOON units finally ceased their ramming attacks, Kira slammed the Divinity bodily into the Akatsuki, sending it tumbling. The Eclipse lined up for another shot from its beam cannon, but Kira launched himself over it. The Strike Freedom was there instantly, saber held high for a disabling blow.

"_I don't think so!_" Kira roared, even as he thrust up the Divinity's left hand, igniting the palm cannon and catching the Strike Freedom's beam saber blade on the palm cannon's shining energy. Murrue's eyes went wide in disbelief.

"What the? He _caught it?_" The Strike Freedom rattled and her world shook as the Divinity rammed its knee into the machine's torso, three times in rapid sucession. "Dammit! How the hell can you_ even catch a beam saber blade?_"

An instant later, Murrue's monitors filled with static as the Divinity severed the Strike Freedom's head with a blast from its eye-mounted cross-flare cannons. As the blasts detonated, they ignited into a pure-white cross of energy which rose nearly a mile above the now disabled Strike Freedom.

"Hope, Mayu!" Murrue yelled, even as she was violently rattled within the cockpit of the Strike Freedom. "Hurry! Disable Kira's machine while he's distracted with me!"

The Impulse and Destiny raised their EMP cannons and fired. An instant later, both of the high-power EMP blasts engulfed the Divinity, overwhelming its advanced EMP shielding and causing it to completely power down. The Destiny quickly boosted towards the now plummeting Divinity Gundam, catching the angelic mobile suit before then moving to the Excalibur and gently setting the disabled machine down in the hanger bay.


	37. Dual Weddings

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 37**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

**Warning:** This chapter contains an extreme lemon, and is not suitable for anyone under the age of 18.

* * *

Shinn Asuka stood in his quarters, clad in an elegant tuxedo and sweating slightly.

"Are you sure you're ready for this, Shinn?" Kira Yamato asked, smiling as he walked into the room and moved to stand beside the crimson-eyed man. Like Shinn, Kira was also clad in an elegant tuxedo. Considering everything that they had endured over the last few millenia, they were now like brothers.

"Yes, Kira." Shinn replied, letting out a slight sigh as they both stepped into the elevator. "I've loved Luna since before we defected from ZAFT all those years ago."

"I know, and I do have to admit that you and Luna make a good couple." Kira said, as the elevator stopped and the doors opened, allowing them to move out into the corridor and towards the church, which was located only one deck above the crew quarters.

"I appricate the comment, Kira." Shinn replied, blushing slightly as they arrived at the doors leading into the church. Kira nodded before he quickly ducked inside and took his seat, while Shinn moved towards the rear entrance of the church.

Less then five minutes later, Shinn stood at the altar, patiently yet anxiously waiting for Lunamaria's arrival.

There were only a few dozen people present at the wedding, mostly due to the simple fact that Celestial Being was still a relatively small organization. Kira was there, acting as the priest. Shinn's younger sister; Mayu Asuka sat in the first row of pews, along with Lunamaria's younger sister; Meyrin Hawke, and her own fiancé Athrun Zala. Cagalli Yula Athha, Hope Yamato, Lacus Clyne and Murrue Ramius were seated in the second row, while the eighteen remaining rows held the crews of the Ptolemaios, the Minerva and the original Archangel.

Lunamaria Hawke gracefully stood up, her long white dress trailing behind her, as the door to her quarters opened with a hiss. After a moment of nervous hesitation, she walked down to the hallway that lead into the chapel where she and Shinn would exchange vows.

Shinn Asuka's eyes widened slightly as the door leading into the chapel finally hissed open a moment later, and Lunamaria Hawke elegantly strode in, wearing a pure white dress which stopped just above her ankles. Luna felt tears of joy silently slip from her eyes as she walked up to the altar, stopping beside Shinn.

Shinn glanced at Luna from the corner of his eye just as the minister, none other than his close friend, Kira Yamato, turned to him and asked. "Do you Shinn Asuka take Lunamaria Hawke as your lawfully wedded wife?"

Lunamaria's beautiful blue eyes were dancing with merriment as Shinn nodded and answered. "I do."

After giving Shinn a knowing look, the amethyst-eyed man turned to Luna and said. "Do you Lunamaria Hawke take Shinn Asuka to be your lawfully wedded husband?"

Luna's voice quivered with suppressed laughter as she said. "I do."

Kira shot a look of confusion over the bride and groom's odd tones of voice then smiled as he said. "I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride."

Leaning in for the their first kiss as husband and wife, Shinn paused just before their lips touched to murmur. "I love you, Luna."

Pressing her lips gently on his and receiving a gentle kiss in return, she whispered to him as they pulled away from each other. "I love you too, Shinn."

After they had finally broken the kiss, Kira cleared his throat, causing both Shinn and Luna to look at him.

"Now, before I allow the two of you to proceed to your honeymoon, I want to give you something." The amethyst-eyed man smiled as he gently placed a hand on each of their foreheads. Shinn and Luna both looked at Kira in confused silence, but after only five short seconds, Kira removed his hand, and instantly the two felt rejuvenated.

"Shinn Asuka, Lunamaria Hawke." Kira smiled. "I will not only be the first person to congratulate you on your marriage, but I will also be the first one to welcome you to eternal life."

Thirty minutes later, Mayu Asuka slipped her silk wedding dress on, pulling it all the way up as Cagalli Yula Athha stood behind her, looking at the younger woman in the full-body mirror.

"We need to adjust your breasts so they fit properly." As soon as Cagalli had said this, she slid her hands around to Mayu's breasts and started to squeeze them into the dress. Mayu jumped a little as Cagalli's soft hands sent shivers down her spine.

Cagalli pulled Mayu's breasts up and out of the dress, then she held the dress out as she tried to fit them back into the cups. As she was doing this her fingers were brushing against Mayu's nipples causing them to become erect. She was embarrassed and excited all at the same time. But Cagalli didn't seem to notice.

"There, that looks better." Cagalli smiled.

Looking in the mirror, Mayu was completely stunned. The dress fit her like a glove. It hugged her hips perfectly, showing lots of leg and she had the best looking cleavage. Her nipples were clearly visible straining against the soft silk, but it made her fell even sexier.

"Thanks, Cagalli. Oh, I'm so excited!" Mayu squealed.

_'I'll bet you are.'_ Cagalli thought as she flexed her hands, still imagining Mayu's breasts in them.

"I have to go make sure that everyone else is ready." Cagalli said as she turned for the door. "Come to the chapel when you're all set."

"Sure, I'll be there in a few minutes." Mayu answered, still admiring herself in the mirror.

Mayu's dress was a light pink strapless gown with a form-fitting design along her chest and midriff with an open cut for the lower part, showing off a fair amount of her left leg. On the back was a pair of small, angelic looking wings that were of the purest white in order to compliment the light pink hue of the rest of the dress. Along the line of her breasts was an intricately embroidered wave pattern to compliment Mayu's already impressive bust. She had her silky brunette hair hanging loose behind her back down to the wings before being tied into a tight braid along the rest of its length down to the floor. She took one last look in the mirror before she headed for the Excalibur's chapel with butterflies in her stomach.

Five minutes later Mayu stood at the alter, patiently yet anxiously waiting for Hope's arrival.

There were only a few people present at the wedding; Cagalli Yula Athha, Lacus Clyne and Murrue Ramius, all of whom were seated in the first row. Although she wasn't about to say anything, Cagalli was very jealous of Hope.

Hope Yamato gracefully stood up, her long white dress trailing behind her, as the door to her quarters opened with a hiss. After a moment of nervous hesitation, she walked down to the hallway that led into the chapel where she and Mayu would exchange vows.

Mayu Asuka's eyes widened slightly as the door leading into the chapel finally hissed open a moment later, and Hope Yamato elegantly strode into the chapel, her dress was pure white, complementing her creamy skin. Hope's dress, like Mayu's, had a form fitting design around her bust and abdomen before dropping to a flowing white gown that stopped at her ankles. The dress covered Hope's body in a soft silk all the way up to her breasts, similar to Mayu's own, but where Mayu's was strapless, Hope's had a thin layer of fine silk lace from the crest of her cleavage over her shoulders and to her back. In the center of the lace, right over her cleavage, was a small heart-shaped cut-out rimmed with small pearls. Hope also wore long, white elbow-length gloves, while her upper arms remained bare. Finally, she wore a normal veil draped over her face, while her long brunette tresses acted as the back of the veil, the long, silky tresses gracefully trailing behind her. Beneath the silken veil small tears of joy slipped from Hope's eyes as she took her place beside Mayu.

Mayu glanced at Hope from the corner of her eye just as the minister, none other than Kira Yamato, turned to her and asked. "Do you Mayu Asuka take Hope Yamato as your lawfully wedded wife?"

Hope's beautiful amethyst eyes were dancing with merriment as Mayu nodded and answered. "I do."

After giving Mayu a knowing look, the amethyst-eyed man turned to Hope and said. "Do you Hope Yamato take Mayu Asuka to be your lawfully wedded wife?"

Hope's voice quivered with joy as she tearfully said. "I do."

Kira smiled as he said. "I now pronounce you spouse and spouse. You may kiss the bride." Leaning in for their first kiss, Mayu paused and lifted the silk veil just before their lips touched to murmur. "I love you, Hope."

Pressing her lips gently on Hope's own, and receiving a gentle kiss in return, she whispered to her as they pulled away from each other. "I love you too, Mayu."

After their kiss the other girls all stood up and gave a light applause. Kira noticed a slight look of reluctance on Cagalli's face as she clapped, but he decided to ignore it for the time being, after all this was meant to be a happy occasion and he wasn't about to ruin it.

"Now then. Let's leave these two alone for tonight." Kira said, as Murrue, Lacus and Cagalli finished their applause, speaking even as he turned to leave the chapel. "Come on, Lacus. Tonight's our night, and bring Cagalli too." Kira said as he loosened his uniform collar and headed to their shared quarters.

"Coming, Kira!" Lacus called as she placed her hands on Cagalli's shoulders and began to push her out of the chapel. She looked at back at Hope and Mayu, both of whom still stood at the altar, locked in another kiss. "Congratulations, you two!" Lacus said, before she and Cagalli left.

As Hope and Mayu continued to passionatly kiss each other, Mayu felt something wiggle in womb, causing her to moan lightly. This did not go unnoticed by Murrue, who decided that this was her cue to leave and hopefully join in on Kira's fun. As Murrue started to leave, she heard Mayu moan again, this time a little louder, she also saw that the young woman had fallen to her knees.

"Is she okay?" Murrue asked.

"I think all the excitement was just a little overwhelming for her, she'll be okay." Hope replied as she knelt done next to her lover.

"All right have fun below you two." Murrue said with a grin as she left.

"H-Ho-Hope." Mayu quietly moaned as her new spouse quickly scooped her up into her arms and began to carry her out of the chapel. "I can feel the baby leeches squirming inside my womb."

Hope nodded towards her young lover, smiling as she replied. "That means you're about to give birth, Mayu."

"It feels so good." Mayu moaned, as the feeling of the leeches squirmring within her steadily grew stronger and continued to arouse her.

"Just relax." Hope smiled, as she quickly carried her new wife out of the chapel and headed towards the Inner Sanctum. "We'll be in the Inner Sanctum in a moment, and then you'll be able to give birth to as many leeches as you want."

Mayu simply nodded, wrapping her arms around Hope's neck as she carrried the younger woman towards the elevator.

"Computer." Hope calmly yet urgently spoke, even as she utilized what Kira had considered to be a 'greatly neglected ability' and gathered her her silky, ten-foot long, brunette tresses around herself as she stood in the elevator, despite the fact that she was gently cradling Mayu in her arms. "Birthing priority transport to Inner Sanctum, deck four." The computer responded with a beep as the doors quickly, yet silently slid shut, and a few short seconds later, the elevator began to rapidly descend.

"Identity comfirmed, manual over-ride engaged. Welcome, Hope Yamato." The computer announced a moment later, as the door leading into the Inner Sanctum hissed open and Hope strode in, carefully cradling Mayu in her arms, both women still dressed in their wedding gowns. Without any hesitation, Hope carried Mayu into the elevator which granted access to the other levels of the Inner Sanctum.

As the elevator quickly, yet silently descended, Mayu looked up, gazing lovingly into her new wife's beautiful amethyst-eyes. Hope simply smiled as she looked back into Mayu's deep violet eyes, which were slowly being clouded with lust as the baby leeches continued to squirm within her, eager to enter the world.

After less than fifteen seconds, about half the time that it normally took to reach the third floor from the first, the elevator stopped and the doors silently opened, revealing the now fimiliar hallway, lit with alternating pink and green lights, the lights leading to the large door at the end of the corridor, above which hung the lighted sign with the word 'Salon' written on it. Although now, the sign was glowing not with its normal white color, but instead with a soft blue, which slowly faded into an equally soft pink.

"Wh-why are we going into the salon, Hope?" Mayu softly moaned as Hope quickly strode down the corridor.

"The delivery rooms are on this floor only, Mayu." Hope lied as she quickly carried Mayu through the salon, down another, shorter corridor, and finally, into one of the six delivery rooms. In truth, there were delivery rooms on each of the Inner Santum's floors, but Hope had choosen the third floor of the Inner Sanctum because she knew that, after the birth, her beautiful wife would probably want to be pampered.

Mayu's only response was to let out another moan of pleasure as her wife gently laid her down on the delivery bed.

"Ho-Hope, aren't you going to undress me?" Mayu asked, laying her head on the soft pillow as another moan escaped from between her lips.

"No, you just look so sexy in that dress, Mayu." Hope replied, smiling as she gently freed her lover's silky, ankle-length brunette tresses from beneath her body, running her hand through the soft locks as they cascaded off the bed and onto the floor. "I'll remove your panties so that you'll be able to give birth without any problems, but your dress will stay on until I say otherwise."

Mayu deeply blushed and nodded in understanding as Hope quickly moved to the foot of the delivery bed. The young woman watched with baited breath as her beautiful lover reached underneath her dress, grabbed the sides of her pure white, silk panties and removed them with a single, lighting-quick yank. Hope smiled sweetly as she carefully spread Mayu's legs and placed them in the stirrups before finally securing the younger woman's legs in place with thick, silk restraints.

"Don't worry, Mayu." Hope softly said as a look of concern crossed her young lover's face. "These restraints are only for the protection of your babies and yourself."

"Okay." Mayu nodded, before letting another moan escape her lips.

"Now, Mayu, just relax. You may need to push the first few out." Hope said, as she held Mayu's hand after removing her wedding veil, so it wouldn't get in her way. Another moan slipped from Mayu's throat, this one louder then the others, as her body began to quiver in pleasure. "O-One's coming..." Mayu breathed. "I can feel one coming."

"Just relax, Mayu, and give it a little push like you were exercising." Hope said, as she stroked Mayu's hair. Using her belly muscles as best she could, Mayu flexed, moaning as the first leech was pushed a quarter of the way out of her womanhood and on to the cushioned delivery bed.

"Ah, Hope, it feels s-so good." Mayu moaned as she flexed again, and as the leech was pushed further out, Mayu suddenly felt her muscles tighten on their own, causing her to arch her back and moan again. The leech had caused her to orgasm, which had the added benefit of causing it to slither out of her and onto the delivery bed.

Even as the leech slithered out of Mayu, Hope decided to make things a little more interesting, spawning a tiny black hole, which hovered a few feet behind Mayu's head, but before releasing the singularity's intense gravity, Hope altered it so that it would only tug on Mayu's beautiful silken hair.

"Good, Mayu, you got the first one out." Hope said, smiling as she planted a comforting kiss on her lover's forehead. A few seconds later, Mayu felt another leech coming. She tried as best she could to repeat the process like with the first one, all while her blissful moans filled the room.

The intense pleasure of giving birth made Mayu blissfully unaware that Hope had released the black hole, even as her silken tresses were quickly pulled towards the black hole and formed a thin spiraling ribbon until making contact with the black hole and getting sucked into the signularity. After getting sucked into the black hole, Mayu's silky brunette tresses exited a white hole outside the ship, steadily becoming longer.

After several minutes, Mayu gave birth to three more leeches, all while Hope stayed beside her, holding Mayu's hand with her right hand and gently stroking her hair with the left, along with a periodic kiss every now and then. Mayu moaned as she felt yet another leech coming. By this time, the first two leeches which Mayu had given birth to had slithered underneath her top and were now eagerly suckling from her breasts.

"How m-many am I going to h-have?" Mayu asked breathlessly, as she tried to push what was now the fifth leech from her womb. But the intense overdoses of pleasure were starting to weaken the young girl's stamina.

"I don't know how many you're going to have Mayu, but its alright, we need to get this little guy all the way out." Hope said, as she looked at the leech that was only halfway out.

"I-I can't, Hope." Mayu whimpered. "I don't have the strength anymore."

"Yes you can, Mayu. You just need to give one more push." Hope said, trying to encourage her lover. Hope could understand Mayu's exhaustion, giving birth to leeches was equal to an entire night of non-stop sex, and Mayu had already had four leeches, and that was like four days of non-stop sex.

"P-please, Hope." Mayu quietly whimpered, now struggling to keep her eyes open and to stay awake. "Make it stop, I'm exhausted."

"But you're doing so well, Mayu." Hope smiled, hiding the dissappointment which she was now feeling; she would have to severely punish Mayu after this for giving up so easily. "You're only going to have six more, and after that, I'll let you sleep for as long as you want."

"NO!" Mayu suddenly shouted, as her body flooded with adrenaline, her fear once more resurfacing, giving her an unexpected burst of strength as she sat up, grabbing the leech which she had partially given birth to, forcibly yanking it from herself and throwing across the room. "I'm not going to give birth to anymore of these disgusting things!"

An instant later, Mayu found herself once again lying on her back, on the delivery bed, except that now, her wrists were restrained above her head and there was a thick leather collar around her neck. While restraining the younger woman, Hope had also made the black hole vanish, freeing Mayu's silky hair, which was now nearly five miles in length.

"You don't seem to understand, Mayu." Hope smiled, gently running a hand through the younger woman's soft tresses. "You don't really have any choice."

"H-Hope, please." Mayu quietly cried. "I don't want to." Hope could only smile in response as she pressed a deep and passionate kiss to Mayu's lips.


	38. Pleasure and Fear

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 38**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

**Warning:** This chapter contains an extreme lemon, and is not suitable for anyone under the age of 18.

* * *

Hope smiled as she quickly stripped herself of her wedding dress, with Mayu quickly following her lead. Once both women were completely naked, Hope led Mayu into the spacious, six-person shower stall, and without saying anything she utilzed her powers to shorten the younger woman's hair so that it only fell to her ankles, while also shortening her own locks to the same length, even as she shut the glass door behind herself before then hitting a button which turned all five of the shower heads on.

As the two women relaxed, simply letting the warm water cascade down upon their naked bodies and soak into the hair, Mayu noticed a group of dials next to the button which turned the shower heads on and off. Curosity quickly took over as Mayu took a few steps towards the group of dials and began to read them. A moment later, Mayu's eyes widened as she read the possible selections on the shower dials.

The left-most dial was a standard shower dial, with tempature control, the dail to the right of the tempature control actually controlled what sprayed from the shower heads, and Mayu was amazed at how many options there were, along with some of the options themselves.

At the moment, 'water' was selected, but many other liquids could be expelled from the shower heads as well, and Mayu's eyes widened as she read the different options.

Starting at the top of the dial, was the currently selected option of water. Moving around the dial clockwise, the second option was shampoo/conditioner, the third option was bodywash, the fourth option was foaming upholstery cleaner, the fifth option was liquid clothing detergent, the sixth option was dish detergent, the seventh option was chocolate, the eighth option was honey, the ninth option was leech slime, the tenth option was liquid hydrogen, the eleventh option was candle wax, and the the twelfth and final option was boiling bacon grease. Mayu also noticed that the final three options had a glowing red light beside them.

Mayu sighed softly as Hope began to run her hands through her silky brunette locks, and as Hope began to comb her hands through the young woman's tresses, she also began to return her lover's hair to its previous length of nearly six miles.

Hope smiled as she stood behind Mayu, continuing to comb her hair with her fingers. She then reached over to a small door on the wall of the shower and removed two items from the little cubby; a small metallic bullet vibrator and its waterproof wireless remote. Hope grinned slyly as she spun Mayu around and planted a searing kiss on her new wife's lips, and with skillful use of her hands, Hope slipped the small vibrator deep into Mayu's womanhood.

"Ah...what was that?" Mayu asked, but Hope merely smiled as she clicked the 'on' switch on the remote. Within a few short seconds, the small device began to vibrate and hum inside Mayu, causing her to gasp and fall to the floor as her knees gave way.

"Mayu, for nearly killing one of your leeches and for making such a fuss, I want you to wash my hair by hand." Hope said, as she looked down at her lover. "That vibrator is currently at its lowest speed setting and you will tend to my hair with that inside you the whole time." She explained. "But if you should complain, I will increase the power until the vibrator is at its highest setting. And let me warn you, my dear." Hope continued as she knelt down to face her young lover. "Not even Cagalli can handle the highest setting of this little thing." Hope smiled as she gently grabbed Mayu's arm and pulled the young woman back to the feet.

"H-Hope." Mayu gasped, her legs visibily quivering from the pleasure which was flowing through her body, threatening to once again give way, forcing the young woman to reach out with both hands to steady herself, her left hand grabbing a towel rack, while her right hand grabbed the dial that dictated which of the many liquids were currently being expelled from the shower heads, although the young woman was very careful as to not accidently turn the dial. "How do you expect me to tend to your hair when you are teasing me like this?"

"I thought I told you not to complain." Hope said, increasing the speed of the vibrator to its next level.

"Ooohhh!" Mayu loudly moaned, her knees once more giving out and sending her sliding to the floor, but since her right hand now held the dial which controlled the liquids that were expelled from the shower heads, when she fell to the floor, the dial yielded to her motions, switching the flowing liquid from water.

The flowing liquids cycled through three of the ten selections, more specifically water, shampoo and bodywash, before finally stopping halfway between the bodywash and the foaming upholstery cleaner, the showerheads now spraying both liquids down on the two women. The bodywash merely soaked into their silky tresses while the upholstery cleaner quickly began to form a rich, thick foam that completely covered their hair, the rapidly thickening foam would not only clean their hair, but once rinsed out, it would also make the silken strands much softer then before.

"Mayu." Hope smiled, seemingly unconcerned about the two liquids which were now spraying down upon them. "I didn't tell you earlier, but I also won't allow you to breastfeed until you have washed every inch of my hair." She paused for a few seconds, letting those words sink in before continuing. "I suggest you get to work, because for every minute you waste, my hair is becoming one mile longer."

"W-what?" Mayu asked, this time grabbing the towel rack with both hands and hauling herself to her feet, her legs barely supporting her weight as the vibrator continued to mercilessly send wave after of wave of pleasure coursing through her body. "W-why do you insist on torturing me like this, Hope?" The young woman whimpered, tears slowly slipping from her eyes as she continued to try and fight off the slowly increasing pleasure which the vibrator was relentlessly giving her.

"I only torture you like this because I love you." Hope smiled before pressing a deep and passionate kiss to Mayu's lips.

"I love you too, Hope." Mayu replied after Hope reluctantly broke the kiss, nearly ten seconds later. Hope then handed Mayu a large, round hairbrush, the younger woman hesitated for a moment, but finally she began to lovingly brush Hope's silky brunette tresses.

"To an outsider, or a newcomer such as yourself, Mayu." Hope smiled, even as her beautiful young lover began to gently brush her hair. "It probably appears strange and excessive, but first and foremost, we women consider all our hair to be a gift, and something of a work of art. Long hair is a fetish, an obsession, and a hobby, but it is definitely not the only thing this family is about."

"Amazing." Was all Mayu could say, as she finally finished rinsing and brushing every inch of her lover's silky hair, nearly two hours later. Hope had been merciful towards her young lover, having reduced the power of the vibrator back to its first setting after only thirty minutes.

"Imagine what kind of static charge could build up with more than a mile of hair dragging on the floor!" Mayu said, as she followed Hope out of the shower, and towards the salon.

Mayu helped Hope to one of the chairs. Mayu could tell that Hope obviously enjoyed her gigantic mass of hair at full flourish, but even normally simple tasks such as moving from one room to another and sitting down were quite daunting. It was a real challenge to move about, pushing and lifting Hope's hair one way or another, in addition, Mayu had to be very careful as to not step on her lover's silken tresses as they moved. Even after Hope sat down, Mayu ocasionally found herself accidentially stepping on, or in some cases, nearly tripping over her lover's soft brunette tresses.

"Mayu." Hope sweetly smiled. "Before we continue, why don't you go put your wedding dress back on?" Mayu didn't know it at the moment, but Hope had special copies of their wedding dresses made, these copies were exactly like the original wedding dresses, except that unlike the originals, these ones were meant to handle the more extreme wear and tear which they would undoubtedly encounter in the Inner Sanctum. Without even waiting for a reply, Hope took the hairbrush from her young lover, continuing to brush her silky brunette tresses where Mayu had left off.

Mayu smiled slightly as she turned and quickly vanished into the closet, only to reappear a few moments later, once again dressed in her light pink wedding gown, the pair of angelic looking wings fluttering slightly as she walked back to her lover. Hope noticed that Mayu's silky brunette hair once more hung loose behind her back down to the wings before being tied into a tight braid along the rest of its length, but she also noticed that her young lover's hair was now at least ten feet long, if not longer.

"You want to breastfeed, don't you, Mayu?" Hope seductively asked, even as she continued to teasingly brush her silky brunette tresses, which still extended for twenty miles.

"Of course I want to breastfeed, Hope." Mayu answered, grinning.

"I'll let you breastfeed from me." Hope smiled, even as she continued brushing her hair. "But only if you allow a pair of the leeches which you gave birth to earlier, to feed from your own breasts while you feed from mine."

"Why?" Mayu whined, clearly not happy with her lover's decision.

"Because, Mayu." Hope answered, even as she set the hairbrush down on the armrest of the salon chair, grabbed the top of the breastcups on the young woman's wedding dress and yanked downwards, causing the pink silk covering Mayu's breasts to fall away with the distinctive sound of velcro losing its hold. "You gave birth to those leeches, so you have to feed them, whether you like it or not."


	39. Those Who Call For War

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 39**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

Recently, Celestial Being had commissioned a holographic Artificial Intelligence assistant, run solely by the advanced AI programmed into the Excalibur's computer. Celestial Being's computer was female and was known as LEXI for Learning EXperimental Intelligence. One of Lexi's most unique tasks was functioning as a babysitter of sorts, both as an assistant in nurseries and hospitals onboard the massive ship, and more independently in the private residence of Celestial Being's leader and his family.

If there was a electronic or computerized device that was capable of communicating with other devices, and it was within 500 miles of the Excalibur, then Lexi was probably monitoring and controlling it to at least some degree. She functioned as a CIC for Celestial Being's combat forces, even down the individual pilot and soldier level. She regulated the internet, the communications lines, the video channels, the power, waste, water and air exchange systems, handled the automated transit lines and was generally underfoot and in your face, if not always bluntly, wherever you went. Lexi was also the only person, other then Kira Yamato and his family, who was allowed any access to the Inner Sanctum.

"Cagalli, Kira wants to know what you want to do with the Strike Rouge." A new voice, an electronically modulated one that people always said sounded like a mixture between Cagalli and Lacus, which was no real surprise given that they had both contributed example speech patterns to the LEXI project, said from behind Cagalli. She glanced over her shoulder, blinking a bit as she always did when confronted with one of Lexi's holograms. Lexi currently bore the appearance of an attractive young woman, somewhere in her younger twenties, fit, svelte and tanned, with dark brown hair which fell to her knees, and intent blue eyes, though in truth she could alter her hair and eye and even skin color pretty much as she wanted to. "Kira also wants to know when you plan to spend some quality time alone with him."

By installing holoprojectors throughout the Excalibur, Lexi could transmit herself anywhere and everywhere on the ship where she was needed, either to control various electronic appliances, or much more often, to act as an assistant in nurseries and hospitals throughout the ship.

"Am I a bad wife, Lexi?" Cagalli asked despondently, slumping against a wall, her responses to both of Kira's questions momentarily forgotten. "Am I putting too much of Celestial Being before my own family?"

"You do work too hard sometimes, according to my database on average hours worked of government servants." Lexi answered with a shrug. "I'm still working out the whole relative value of family acts, so I'm not sure I can quite put a numerical tag on the worth of your time with Kira. But he does miss you terribly, though he has stopped crying himself to sleep."

"Stop! You're twisting the knife!" Cagalli snapped, with an angry flush to her face, though her anger wasn't directed at Lexi. That was the final straw, she was going to take some time off and start being a wife again, rather than letting her largely self appointed duties tie her up all day and night! It simply wasn't right for Kira to go without seeing his lover so much! "Cancel my appointments for the next week, would you? Tell them I'm sick or something."

"Even the dinner with Representative Clyne and our envoys to the United Nations?" Lexi asked with a cocked eyebrow.

"Shit." Cagalli swore. "Okay, keep those two, and anything else rated as National Security level or above. But the buearacratic day to day bullshit, trash that."

The Excalibur was once more floating high above the Earth. The massive, dagger-shaped vessel had returned to a timeline which it had previously visited; the mid twentieth century. Celestial Being had returned to 1947, only two years after the end of the Second World War, in order to tie up a few loose ends, and to quell a few relatively small battles which had arisen.

"For the Preservation of our Blue and Pure World!"

In one of the hangers at Celestial Being's Armory One PLANT colony, a grenade suddenly landed next to a small group of workers, and before they could run, the weapon exploded. Four armed people rushed into the hanger, firing on the Celestial Being soldiers and workers. They never stood a chance. The four were fast, brutal and efficient. Erich Gerhard Barkhorn leapt into the air as Heinz Schmidt and Horst Ademeit fired on Coordinators and Naturals alike. Horst gunned down a pair of armed soldiers atop one of the mobile suits. Erich landed, slashing one soldier's throat and shooting several others. One soldier rushed to the alarm. But before he could reach it, bullets tore through his legs and he fell to the ground.

Adolf Galland finished the last of the Celestial Being personnel. Smirking, he approached the other three.

"Get into the machines." He ordered, climbing onto one of the four machines. "Deactivate the self-destruct first."

Adolf climbed into the cockpit of his machine, removing his sunglasses as he activated the mobile suit, the black screens in the cockpit lighting up.

**MOBILE SUIT NEO OPERATION SYSTEM  
G**eneration**  
U**nrestricted**  
N**uclear**  
D**rive**  
A**ssault**  
M**odule**  
G.U.N.D.A.M  
_Ver.2.5.3 Rev.07_  
Z.A.F.T.**

Adolf quickly deactivated the mobile suit's self-destruct system, even as his teammates did the same. One by one, the Specter Gundam, the Endless Freedom Gundam, the Eternal Justice Gundam and the Redemption Gundam rose to their feet. Suddenly, a wounded Celestial Being soldier hit an alarm. Furious, Adolf gunned the man down with his machine's CIWS.

The poker game in the Excalibur's crew lounge was quickly intensifying. Kira and Shinn had both cut their losses and quit. But Athrun was still determined to defeat Setsuna's unbeatable poker face. Athrun glanced at his hand. A full house. Setsuna was going down, here and now.

"You're going down, Setsuna." He said. "I call."

Setsuna laid his cards on the table. Three eights, a two and a four. Finally, the poker king was beaten. Athrun's smile widened.

"I–"

"All hands report to Level One Battlestations!" Lexi's voice suddenly boomed from the PA system. "This is not a drill! Armory One is under attack! I repeat all hands to Level One Battlestations! Armory One is under attack!"

The four ace pilots instantly stood up, their game forgotten.

"What the hell? Who'd be crazy enough to attack Armory One?" Shinn asked in disbelief.

"Does it matter?" Kira replied. "We're under attack."

In one of the large hangers of the Excalibur, crewmen rushed to finish prepping the mobile suits for launch. Hundreds of mobile suits were quickly lined up in front of the many catapults of the warship.

Among the mobile suits stored in the Excalibur's hanger bays were machines from ZAFT, the Orb Union and the Earth Alliance, not to mention dozens of Gundam units. The Orb Union mobile suit compliment consisted of Astrays and Murasames. The Earth Alliance mobile suit compliment consisted of Dagger Ls, Deep Forbiddens and Windams. While the ZAFT mobile suit compliment consisted of GuAIZ Rs, ZAKUs and GOUFs.

"God damn it." Nicol Amalfi muttered as he quickly made his way into the massive hanger. "Two years. Two years and one month of peace, and it's already over."

"It's not like we could've done anything to stop it, Nicol." Athrun Zala replied sadly.

"It doesn't really matter." Shiho Hahnenfuss said firmly. "We're certianly not going to let anything happen to the PLANTs which we've already constructed in this universe. Too much sacrifice has been made to protect them to let it all go to waste now."

"Your right." Nicol nodded. "Hey, Athrun, you ready for this?"

"I might be a little rusty, but I'm certianly not going to get shot down here." Athrun said.

Shiho snorted. "You could sit there looking pretty with that nasty little twin buster rifle and twin beam saber of yours and you'd turn the tide of battle."

"I think you're exaggerating a little." Athrun frowned.

"Who cares?" Nicol asked, as the catapult doors opened up across the mammoth ship. "But then, you're not the type to sit there looking pretty."

"Everyone ready?" Athrun asked, and his team nodded.

"This is Athrun Zala." He called. "Justice Gundam, taking off."

"Shiho Hahnenfuss, DEEP Arms Gundam, launching."

"Nicol Amalfi, Blitz Gundam, heading out!"

The three Gundams launched, along with many, many more machines as the Excalibur shot out mobile suits like missiles. Within moments, literally thousands of mobile suits were racing towards the defense of Armory One.

The recently redesigned Blitz Gundam was one of the most hideous, fearsome-looking mobile suits ever designed by Celestial Being. Indeed, the Blitz Gundam, for all that it was a state-of-the-art brand new machine that had originally been slated to test a new stealth system, looked like it had been cobbled together from the remains of other Gundams that had seen dozens of battles, covered head-to-foot in scars, the shield mounted on its left arm looking cracked, cursed; evil.

But the most frightening aspect of the machine was its head; which was in fact, the head of the original Blitz Gundam, which had been built by the Earth Alliance. The left side of the Gundam appeared to be in pristine condition while the right looked like it had been run through a garbage disposal, then cobbled back together. The entire right half of the visor was gone, exposing the glowing camera eye. The left-side camera eye appeared blue, but without the cover, the demonic red light of the right-side camera eye was revealed without inhibition, and the fact that the machine was a legendary first-generation Gundam, only made it all the more frightening.

"Athrun, Nicol, Shiho." Kira Yamato's voice suddenly spoke through the comminucations line. "You three go to Armory One and assist them with their defense operation." Before the three pilots could reply, the Divinity Gundam had transformed into its mobile armor mode and streaked towards the planet below.


	40. Fractured Timelines

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 40**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

In the cockpit of the Divinity Gundam, Kira Yamato's threat displays suddenly went crazy as an enormous incoming heat source showed up on his screens, an energy surge preceeding it, and ingrained reflex took over, taking his finger off the trigger and rolling the Divinity through the sky in a wide evasive turn, his team likewise breaking up around him to avoid the literally blinding white ball of pure anti-matter energy that seared up towards them before finally exploding some miles above them, the shockwaves of the distant explosion throwing the mobile suit around like a twig caught in a gale, white light blooming so brightly that it could be seen through closed eyes, even though the source was behind him! Kira knew exactly what that was, an anti-matter cannon blast and a strong one too, but that was impossible! Only Celestial Being possessed that kind of technology!

"Not that piece of shit again!" Kira snarled as he was forced dodge the now all too familiar snowflake-like shape of Nazi Germany's Retribution Gundam. Kira ignited his thrusters, moving towards the Retribution, but was forced to pull back behind his beam shield when the crimson machine raised a large rifle in its right hand as a warning began to sound in the cockpit.

"Oh shit!" Kira yelled as he realized what the weapon in the Retribution Gundam's right hand really was. "That thing has an anti-matter rifle!" The amethyst-eyed man snarled as he dodged another massive blast from the Retribution Gundam's anti-matter cannon. "Excalibur, I need the Lightning Striker!"

Even though the Divinity Gundam sported truly impressive firepower in its standard configuration, it could also augment its firepower by utilizing the Striker Packs from the original Strike Gundam, the Silhouette Modules used by ZAFT-built Impulse Gundam, and of course, the METEOR Unit.

A few short seconds later, the Lightning Striker launched from one of the few catapults located on the Excalibur's underside. As soon as it had cleared the catapult, the Striker ignited its integrated thrusters and plunged into the Earth's atmosphere, manuvering towards the Divinity Gundam. Both the Sword Striker and the Launcher Striker had consisted of several components, but this one seemed to be a single, solid component, with two large objects attached to a larger central component, about the size of the Aile Striker. Kira quickly set his twin beam rifles on the Divinity's hips, attached the Lightning Striker, combined the two components of a rail gun, which was the size of the Eclipse Gundam's M2000GX long-range hyper impulse cannon, and started firing at the Retribution Gundam.

Kira smirked as the Retribution Gundam raised the shield on its left arm, but the large rail gun shell posessed leading edge beam shields and Mirror Coated Phase Shift armor. The shell smashed into the Retribution Gundam's shield, effortlessly tearing through the large chunk of metal before then slicing through the crimson machine's torso.

"Well, that was easy." Kira smirked as he transformed the Divinity back into its mobile armor mode and streaked back towards the Excalibur.

Unbeknownst to virtually everyone, a group of men and women in GINN High-Maneuver Type IIs and worker pods were moving around the largest piece of Junius Seven, which Kira had placed in orbit with the hopes of eventually satiating his recently acquired bloodlust The men and women piloting the GINN High-Maneuver Type IIs were all people who'd lost loved ones to the original Bloody Valentine War, and many had lost friends and even more loved ones to the Second Bloody Valentine War. For them, ultimate victory, the freedom and survival of the PLANTs, would never be enough. For them, the deaths of Christian Balliet, the pilot who destroyed Junius Seven, Jonathon Michaels, the officer who'd made it possible, and Muruta Azrael, the man who'd ordered the attack, would never be enough. Like Patrick Zala, they'd become blind fanatics.

For them, like Patrick Zala, genocide was the only path. In their minds, the souls of their loved ones could only rest when the Earth, the home of the Naturals, had been wiped clean of life.

"Solar wind velocity is steady. Flare level S3. Estimated time to particle arrival, 30 seconds." One pilot reported.

"Hurry up." Another GINN pilot said. "What about Unit 9?"

"We're just about ready, sir." A third pilot replied.

A worker pod entered a code on the final motor. "Flare motor ignition countdown starting."

All of the mobile suits and pods quickly began to withdraw from Junius Seven as one of them started the countdown.

"Ten…nine…eight…seven…six…five…four…three…two…one…particles have arrived. Flare motors activating."

Hundreds of red lights appeared across Junius Seven as the flare motors caught the energy of the solar winds, increasing the speed of the massive wreckage, driving it towards Earth.

"Junius Seven…is moving."

Sato, the leader of the group, glanced at a group of photos taped to his console.

"Helen, Christine…we'll be reunited…after this." He whispered as his former home headed for Earth.

"Now fall! Our great tombstone!" Sato shouted to heavens. "On a world that has forgotten the voices of sorrow! That closes its eyes to the truth and chooses to wallow in deceit! The hour of correction is now at hand!"

"What's that?" One of the pilots asked, as a massive blob appeared on the radar, only to vanish less than two seconds later. No one had time to answer, however, as a pencil thin beam of pure white light lashed out of the blackness and slammed into the remains of the falling colony. The pilots watched in stunned silence as the remains of Junius Seven glowed for an instant but then it vanished without a trace, the ruined PLANT had been forced out of the timeline, essentially erased from existence.

Unknown to anyone at the time, the blast from the Excalibur's temporal inversion cannons had merged multiple realities and timelines into one, fracturing the blue planet and everything around it.

A meeting exclusive to the heads of the noble houses of Orb was rare, but it did happen on occasion. One of the nobles, Uzumi Nara Athha, frowned as he watched the video feed from the military observational UAV, showing the battle between the Earth Forces assault ship Archangel and the Aegis, Blitz and Duel Gundams, which was occuring just outside of Orb's territorial waters. A naval fleet had already been dispatched to defend the border from entry.

Everyone watched in stunned shock as the Archangel, along with all three of the stolen Gundams vanished, only to be replaced by a ship which had been proposed, but never built during the Second World War; the Imperial Japanese class of battleship known as the Super Yamato. The UAV quickly zoomed its camera in on the huge battleship.

The Super Yamato class of battleship was 853 feet long, 128 feet wide, and was armed with a total of nine 510mm guns in triple turrets, and dozens of 100mm anti-aircraft guns.

"What is that thing?" Uzumi asked, still in shock.

"I'm not sure." One of the other nobles replied. "But it appears to be an ancient warship of some kind."

"Tell our fleet to stay on their gaurd." Uzumi said after a moment. "Approach the unknown vessel and try to open a communications line."

Meanwhile in Alaska, the Earth Alliance headquarters JOSH-A was under a relentless ZAFT attack. A single GINN swooped down in front of the bridge of the Earth Alliance warship Archangel, its rifle aimed at the crew. Murrue and the bridge crew all stared down the barrel of the rifle in horror, many instinctively ducking, covering their heads with their arms, or closing their eyes in fear of death. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as the GINN pilot started to squeeze the trigger.

At that instant, a green beam shot from above and tore through the rifle, effectively destroying the weapon without hitting anything else. Everyone in the area looked up in shock, trying to find the source of the blast. Descending on the GINN and the Archangel with impossible speed was a white mobile suit none of them had ever seen before. The mobile suit drew a beam saber and sliced the GINN's head off. The GINN backed off as the newcomer took a position in front of the Archangel's bridge, its majestic blue wings outstretched shielding it from any further harm.

People couldn't help but stare in awe of the new mobile suit, the battle momentarily pausing. It was a majestic-looking machine, and even though it wasn't much larger than any of the original Gundams, it projected an aura of power that made it seem like a titan, all other machines, even the Archangel, seeming tiny in comparison.

"This is Kira Yamato, in the Freedom." A voice suddenly spoke over the Earth Forces communications channel. "I'll cover you. Meanwhile, please, withdraw to safety."

Everyone amongst the Archangel bridge crew and all of the warship's pilots gasped in shock. It couldn't be. But there was no mistaking that voice, that will to protect.

Shaking off their surprise, the GINNs and DINNs resumed their attacks on the Archangel and the other defenders. Kira, understanding as never before what it was that was special about him, felt an amethyst seed rush through his mind and explode behind his eyes. The winged mobile suit flew forward, its targeting system rising in the cockpit and locking onto every nearby ZAFT machine as the hip-mounted railguns unfolded and wing-concealed plasma beam cannons flipped over the shoulders.

Kira squeezed the Freedom's trigger.

Instantly, a beam lanced out from the beam rifle, a pair of beam blasts were launched from the plasma cannons, and a pair of hyper-velocity rounds were slugged from the rail guns. The massive and powerful barrage was perfectly aimed, hitting the heads, limbs and weapons of dozens of ZAFT mobile suits before proceeding to hit another one behind the first, and continuing on like this for several more machines. One victim was the crimson CGUE's head. Stunned pilots of both damaged and undamaged mobile suits backed away from the winged mobile suit and the legged ship, unsure of what to do against the power the newcomer had displayed. The defenders all gaped at the incredible firepower and unbelievably precise accuracy.

"What the hell was that?" Yzak Joule yelled in shock. Even Shiho Hahnenfuss was somewhat fearful of this powerful new machine.

With nerves of steel, many pilots proceeded to charge back in, all gunning for this new machine, but it dealt with them in a manner that seemed to be mocking to many of the onlookers, treating the ZAFT suits like they were nothing more than mild pests of no real concern.

"Please, stop wasting time, withdraw!" Kira said, suddenly appearing on the main monitor of the Archangel's bridge.

"Yes, but..." Murrue replied. "Well...there's...a Cyclops. Beneath Headquarters! We're all just bait. They planned this! We had no idea!"

Kira gasped slightly.

"That's why we can't withdraw." Murrue continued. "We have to get further away from the base."

"I understand." Kira answered, even as he blew away another GINN with the left plasma cannon. Bringing up the Freedom's targeting system again, Kira locked onto a mix of mobile suits and inbound missiles, flying forward with all weapons at the ready. He activated an outgoing communications line on all channels.

"Attention all ZAFT and Earth Alliances Forces!" Kira said. "Any moment now, the Cyclops System will activate and the Alaska Base will self-destruct!" Kira heard more than a few gasps of surprise as he began firing repeatedly, destroying missiles and disarming or otherwise disabling mobile suits. "Both sides, please, cease fighting and withdraw from this area immediately! I repeat: the Cyclops System will activate and the Alaska Base will self-destruct. Both sides, please, cease fighting and withdraw from this area immediately!"


	41. Reconnaissance

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 41**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

**Author's note: **I'd like to thank fellow member/reader **KAZEONI** for his help with this chapter. **KAZEONI** rightfully deserves credit for assisting me with this chapter, as well coming up with the idea which a majority of this chapter is centered around.

* * *

In one of the large hangers of the Excalibur, crewmen rushed to finish prepping the machines for launch. Hundreds of mobile suits and aircraft were quickly lined up in front of the many catapults of the warship, even as the ship itself prepeared to plunge into the atmosphere of the planet, which was now fractured between dozens of different timelines.

"Attention all hands." The voice of Lacus Clyne boomed from the PA system. "The Excalibur will be commencing atmosphereic re-entry in five minutes. Once the ship has reached crusing altitude, we will begin commencing multiple armed interventions across the globe."

Underneath JOSH-A, the Earth Alliance's headquarters in Alaska, the massive Cyclops System array came to life. The first to feel its effects were the Eurasian soldiers in the interior of JOSH-A and the ZAFT forces that had penetrated the interior. Unlike a normal self-destruct that would have engulfed the base in a massive explosion, the microwave weapon rapidly heated up the munitions and propellant of weapons used by both forces causing them to explode. It had the same effect on human bodies. Water in the human body would quickly heat up. The people affected inflated like balloons. Mercifully, this agonizing process only lasted a few seconds before they too exploded from the inside out.

They were the first victims of the Cyclops System but they wouldn't be the last. The system wouldn't stop until it reached the critical point and the base, as well as the array itself, was destroyed by the intense heat.

"We really fucked up this time." Hope muttered as the Excalibur, which was now shrouded behind the veil of its Mirage Colloid stealth system, leveled out above high above the Atlantic Ocean. Far below, the German battleship Bismarck was firing salvo after salvo of shells at a pair of Earth Alliance Arkansas-class destroyers.

Ten minutes later, Kira along with his many lovers and several members of the command staff were sitting in the Excalibur's briefing room with Kira at the head of the table.

"Alright..." Kira began. "We all know that the very fabric of time on Earth has become, in layman's terms; clusterfucked." He explained.

"That's not even the half of it!" Cagalli chimed in, motining towards the monitor. "Look at this! We have American civil war soldiers taking part in the D-Day landings, mobile suits from ZAFT fighting Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps and ships from both world wars are slugging it out with vessels from the Cosmic Era!"

Kira glared at Cagalli, visibly annoyed with her outburst. "Thank you Cagalli...for stating the brutally obvious!" After a few tense moments, Kira was finally able to calm down.

"Now then, just as Lacus said before we went through atmospheric re-entry; we are planning to conduct multiple armed interventions." He explained. "However, we will not be at full strength." He added with an annoyed sigh.

"Why's that?" Athrun asked from the far end of the table.

"Well, we are down four units. Hope, Mayu, both of your Gundams are down for routine maintenance, and won't be operational for a few days." Kira explained as he looked in their direction.

"Okay, but what about the other two?" Hope asked, causing Kira to look in Asuka's direction with a visibly irritated glare on his face.

"What?" The red-headed Eva pilot innocently asked.

"Well, Asuka." Kira answered. "Thanks to that little stunt you pulled in training, both of the Evas are also out of action."

Before Asuka could retort Misato chimed in, while keeping a grip on Asuka's shoulder to keep her in her seat. "So, does this mean that the four of us are going to remain here on the ship?"

"No, you won't. I need the four of you to go on a mission of another kind for me." He said as he hit a button on the edge of the table, activating the holo-projector in the center and bringing up an image of the earth. "We will be conducting multiple armed interventions, but before we even begin, we need intel first. That's why I'm sending Asuka and Misato on a reconnaissance flight with Hope and Mayu as fighter escort."

"Now wait just a goddamn minute!" Asuka shouted as she stood up from her seat, clearly losing her temper. "Why do I have to be in the damn radar plane!"

"Because I said so!" Kira answered in a stern voice, but without losing his cool. "Think of it as disciplinary action for damaging the Evas." He said.

"But-" Asuka began, only to be cut off.

"Or would you rather I strip you of your clothing and throw you into solitary confinement, in the brig, leaving you completely naked for a few days?" The amethyst-eyed man asked, with an almost sadistic grin.

Asuka quickly returned to her seat.

"Also, you have training in electronic warfare and that's the main reason why." Kira added as he leaned back in his chair.

"What will we be flying?" Misato asked.

"This." Kira said as he hit another button on his control pad, causing the hologram of the planet earth to be replaced by the image of what looked like a scaled down biplane like version of a B2 Spirit. "The X-49 Night Raven." Kira explained. "It's one of our latest attempts at an aircraft powered by both jet engines and GN drives." He said, while both Misato and Asuka looked at the hologram.

"Where are the recon packages located?" Asuka asked.

"The whole underside of the bottom wing is where most of the sensors are located." Kira answered. "The aircraft also has our Mirror Coated Phase Shift armor, but due to its small size as opposed to a mobile suit, we were not able to fit it with a mirage colloid stealth system. So you have to make do with standard stealth mixed with the jamming from the GN particles." Kira said.

"Is it armed?" Misato asked.

"You two heavy beam cannons for point defense, but no missiles. Remember this is a recon plane not a fighter." Kira answered, and Misato nodded at the information.

Once he had finished his explaination Kira turned to Hope and Mayu. "Which is where you two come in. You will be flying escort in another new plane." He said as he changed the hologram from that of the Night Raven to another plane.

This aircraft was vastly different from the first; it had a long sharp nose, its wings were swept back from the root to mid-way before sweeping forwards the rest of the way giving it the look of a large 'W'. It also had three canards around the cockpit area, One on each side and another on the belly.

"Holy..." Mayu breathed as she looked at the hologram.

"This is the ADF-01 FALKEN, this is your new plane." Kira smiled.

"Wow...that's quite a looker." Hope said.

"It possesses the same GN propulsion, stealth and armor systems as the Night Raven, but is more heavily armed." Kira said. "You have a single beam cannon for point defense, eight GN missiles, and located under the cockpit..." The amethyst-eyed man continued as he hit another button, causing the hologram to animate, the underside of the plane's long nose opening like a mouth. "A miniaturized positron blaster cannon."

Mayu let out a low whistle as she looked over the specs of the aircraft that she and her wife would be flying. "Before I forget; the FALKEN uses the same COFFIN system as your Gundams but the Night Raven doesn't." Kira added.

"Why's that?" Misato asked, beating Asuka to the punch.

"For the same reason the Evas don't have two pilots. As you know the system is connected to the pilot's brain, and if we had two brains trying to control the system at the same time it could cause the system to overload and rebound." Kira explained.

"And I'm guessing that's bad." Asuka said.

"It certainly is unless you want to end up in a mindless vegetative state spending the rest of your days drooling." Kira answered as he stood from the table. "Now that you all have your assignments; all hands prep for action!"

"YES, SIR!" Everyone else shouted in perfect unison as they stood and left the briefing room.

Minutes later, the massive hangers of the Excalibur were alive with activity as hundreds of personnel quickly moved about, prepping for the rapidly approaching operations. Mobile suit pilots boarded their machines and began to check and recheck their systems. Misato was sitting in the cockpit of the X-49 Night Raven, going over the flight controls as she waited for Asuka to show up.

Elsewhere, in one of the many locker rooms on the hanger deck, Hope, Mayu and Asuka were busy getting into their flight suits. The flight suits where black in color with the G-suit built in, while still being form fitting. Asuka wore a relatively normal looking suit while Hope and Mayu's where slightly altered in that they had small patches of red along the backside of the suit. These areas were padded for comfort, as vehicles with the COFFIN system didn't have cushioned seats. Their suits also had small connection ports along the wrist's, ankles, waist, and three along the spine and one at the back of the helmet where the pilot linked with the computer.

Asuka looked over her shoulder, catching a momentary glimpse of Mayu's cleavage before she zipped up her suit. She glanced over at Hope and began grumbling something in German, even as she looked back at her own chest, and then back at the two well endowed women.

"What's wrong, Asuka?" Mayu asked.

"Nothing! Leave me alone, weibchen!" The redhead yelled as she stomped out of the locker room. Mayu looked at Hope as they began to leave. "What was that about?" She asked, and Hope simply shrugged in response.

A few minutes later, Asuka walked into the hanger with Mayu and Hope trailing behind her. Asuka scaled the boarding ladder of the Night Raven and plopped into her seat behind Misato.

"You're late, Asuka!" Misato said as she turned to face her crewmate.

"Yeah, yeah, let's just get ready for take off." Asuka said as she buckled herself in and began to calibrate her systems.

Meanwhile, Hope and Mayu were both just finishing their preflight walk around. Just as Mayu began to climb into the cockpit, Shinn came walking up to her. "Mayu, can I talk to you?" He asked.

"It's going to have to wait, Shinn." She said as she sat in the pilot's seat. "We're about to get underway, in fact we're behind schedule."

Before Shinn could say anymore, Mayu had sealed the hatch. Mayu locked herself into her seat and linked to the plane's computer, activating it. Moments later she, Hope, Asuka and Misato were all locked in to the catapult system. Before launch, Kira's face appeared on the main screen of the all three planes.

"Good hunting, ladies." He said as he gave them a salute. Once his face disappeared the voice of that catapult operator came over the communication system. "Recon flight, you are cleared for take off."

"Roger control, recon flight ready for take off." Misato said. At that moment all three planes maxed out their engines, the quiet whoosh of the GN Drives echoed throughout the hanger. A split second later all three planes lurched forward as they rocketed off the flight line and into the sky.

"YaaaaaaaaaaaHoooooooooooo!" Hope whooped over the radio, she had always loved flying jets more then operating mobile suits and it showed as she started to twirl and roll her plane. "This thing is awesome!"

"Hey, let's put on some music." Mayu said, as she activated a library of millions of songs stored in the aircraft's memory. After a few minutes of searching she found a perfect flying song. "Let's show Misato and Asuka what we can do." Mayu said, as she flew into formation with Hope and started the music. The song was from an old navel flying movie from the late twentieth century. The film known as 'Top Gun' with the song titled 'Danger Zone'.

While Misato kept the Night Raven on course, she watched in awe as the pair of fighters pulled off many maneuvers in time with the music. Both Hope and Mayu could be heard over the communication line, singing along to the lyrics. Within a few moments, Asuka's patience was wearing thin, and finally she slammed her fists into the console before her.

"Would you two stop that?" She shouted, just as the song ended and Hope and Mayu returned to their positions guarding the reconnaissance aircraft.

"Well, someone doesn't have any sense of fun." Mayu huffed at Asuka's outburst as the trio of aircraft continued to speed away from the Excalibur.

"Damn." Mayu muttered about ten minutes later as the three aircraft soared high above Banadiya in Africa. Far below, on the desert floor, a group of three TMF/A-802 BuCUEs, led by a familiar orange colored TMF/A-803 LaGOWE, was relentlessly purusing a group of fleeing German tanks. Hope was quick to notice that the fleeing tanks appeared to be highly modified Panthers. Her suspicions were confirmed when the LaGOWE fired a volley from its beam cannons, only for the twin energy blasts to smash harmlessly against a glowing positron reflector shield that had unexpectedly flared to life around the armored vehicles.

"So, now Nazi Germany has positron refelctor technology." Asuka muttered, her voice laced with more than a hint of sarcasam and contempt. "Wonderful."

"So what?" Hope smirked. "They still can't possibly beat us." At that moment, a single mobile suit seemed to appear out of thin air. The machine displayed vivid red, blue and white armor with a black and red backpack which posessed two pairs of wings, and everyone instantly recognized it as the GAT-X105 Strike Gundam.

"Wait, so now the Strike Gundam is here too?" Misato asked, not completely believeing her eyes.

"It sure looks that way." Mayu sighed. "Protector 1 to Excalibur."

"Excalibur here." Lacus's voice quickly answered. "Go ahead, Protector 1."

"We've found a conflict in the African desert which you might be interested in." Mayu quickly explained. "A group of TMF/A-802 BuCUEs, led by a single TMF/A-803 LaGOWE is fighting against the GAT-X105 Aile Strike Gundam."

"So what?" Cagalli's voice replied. "We've all seen that multiple times before."

"Have you also seen tanks from Nazi Germany equipped with positron reflector shields?" Asuka cut in.

"No." Lacus replied. "We haven't seen that yet."

"Well, someone may want to get out here and interve-oh shit!" Hope suddenly yelled, even as she pulled her fighter up and to the left, barely managing to dodge a pair of searing green beam blasts, which were closely followed by a charging ZGMF-X56S Force Impulse Gundam. Hope's eyes widened when she saw that this particular Force Impulse bore a color scheme perfectly matching that of the now legendary ZGMF-X10A Freedom Gundam. "Where the hell did the Force Impulse Gundam come from?"

"And why does it have the color scheme of my original Freedom Gundam?" Kira's voice yelled. "We'll have to place copyrights on our mobile suit color schemes too."

"Already done, Kira." Lexi's holographic image grinned from where she sat at the auxillary sensor station.

"Lexi, I could kiss you." Kira praised, causing the woman's holographic image to blush slightly, even as he sprinted towards the door.

"Kira, get back here!" Murrue's voice called out as the amethyst-eyed man ran towards the door, clearly intending to launch the Divinity Gundam.

"Ok, if you want to fight, I'll be happy to oblige." Hope scowled, charging her positron cannon and pulling her FALKEN into an Immelmann turn. "Eat shit and die!" She snarled, unleashing a searing blue-red energy blast from the underside of her fighter. The pilot of the Impulse tried to avoid the huge energy blast, but even so, the entire right side of the machine was caught in the blast, rendering the mobile suit unable to fight and forcing it to set down on the desert floor below.

With the recon sweep of the current area complete, the trio of aircraft quickly regrouped, ignited their afterburners and sped off towards their next objective. As the three aircraft quickly moved to regroup, they were fired upon by the TMF/A-803 LaGOWE, one of the searing beam blasts grazing the left engines of the Night Raven, while the other energy blast sliced through the right tailplane of Hope's Falken.

"Oh shit!" Hope, Asuka and Misato cried out in unison as their respective aircraft began to spew clouds of thick black smoke.

"Protector 1 to Excalibur." Mayu called, her voice urgent, but still calm. "Protector 2 and Raven 1 have been hit."

"Understood, Protector 1." Lacus answered, quickly going over the information being sent to her on the Excalibur. "It looks like the Night Raven's left engines are down to only 25% of their standard output." The pink-haired beauty paused for a few short seconds before continuing. "Protector 2, you appear to have lost your left tailplane."

"Oh, really?" Hope growled, struggling to keep her fighter aircraft flying straight and level. "Whatever makes you think that, Lacus?"

"Don't talk back to me." Lacus scowled. "Recon flight, you are hereby ordered to return to base."

"Understood." The three pilots replied in perfect unison, as they climbed high above the clouds and turned back towards the Excalibur.

"Protector 2, since you have the most damage, you will be landing first." Lacus ordered. "Raven 1, you are to come in immediately after Protector 2 has touched down."

"Understood." The three pilots answered in unison.

Hope quickly lined her Falken up with the deck and touched down, only to find that she had somehow missed all of the arrestor cables. "Oh, shit." She muttered, before her plane slammed into the crash net and finally came to a stop, but her feeling of safety was short lived.

Asuka and Misato didn't even have time to scream as the Night Raven plowed into the rear of the Falken, shattering both aircraft into a pair of orange-red fireballs. All three pilots blacked out upon impact.

Mayu landed just as the other two planes exploded.

"HOPE!" She screamed, and without even bothering to taxi off the landing zone or even waiting to reach the boarding ladder, she popped her hatch and leapt from the cockpit to the ground, breaking her ankle on landing.

After a brief moment of intense pain she got back to her feet, threw her helmet aside and sprinted over to the pile of burning, mangled steel that had once been the two planes. Fire crews had already sprung into action and were busy suppressing the flames. Mayu found that the cockpit of Hope's Falken had been turned on its side.

"Hope, can you hear me!" She screamed over the roar of the flames. When she didn't hear a response, Mayu seacrhed frantically for the emergency canopy release lever. Finally, finding what she was searching for she grabbed the lever but instantly recoiled as the intense heat from the fire burned her hands through the gloves.

"AHHH!" She yelled, and after a quick second, she grabbed the lever again, ignoring the sizzling in her hands and yanked the lever triggering the explosive bolts on the cockpit hatch.

What greeted Mayu when she looked into the cockpit made her heart sink. The crash had tossed Hope's body around the cockpit like a rag doll. Her blood had been splattered all over the interior of the cockpit. Mayu quickly but carefully pulled Hope's limp body from the wreckage and away from the fire. Mayu quickly noticed that she couldn't see inside Hope's helmet visor and moved to remove her helmet.

"Hope..." Mayu whispered as she released the clasp on her lover's helmet, causing a small fountain of blood to pour from the opening like paint from a can. Mayu cradled Hope's upper body as she removed her helmet. Mayu could now see the shape Hope was in. Her left eye had ruptured, she had many broken bones and even a large gash were a piece of the plane had punched into the seat from the back and out Hope's right side. Mayu checked Hope's pulse and felt nothing. Hope was for all intents and purposes dead.

_'Why isn't she healing?'_ Mayu thought as she looked back at the wreckage.

"MEDIC!" Mayu screamed at the top of her lungs. Within seconds two medical personal had arrived and placed Hope on a stretcher and quickly moved to the medical deck.

By now the fires had been dealt with and both Asuka and Misato had been removed from the wreckage; both of whom were covered in severe burns.


	42. Intervention at Panama

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 42**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

Despite the loss of two fighter aircraft and the temporary incapacitation of three pilots, Celestial Being was still continuing its armed interventions, and a few days later they were intervening in the battle of Panama. "What the..? My machine! It won't move!" One of the Strike Dagger pilots yelled as he frantically tried to get his machine to work.

Lacus Clyne scowled within the cockpit of the Chimera Gundam as she pushed the now disabled Strike Dagger down and pried open the cockpit hatch. The pilot stepped out with his hands raised. Other nearby members of the Zala Team and Shiho Hahnenfuss, now piloting the Savior Gundam, did the same, rounding up a group of Earth Alliance soldiers.

"Aw...what's the matter? Is your toy broken?" One of ZAFT pilots gloated as he pushed a Strike Dagger down and fired at the cockpit, laughing as he murdered the defenseless pilot.

"Stand down! Do it now, damn it! That's an order!" Athrun roared in anger as the Infinite Justice Gundam's eyes flashed with a bright green light. "They're defenseless, you fucking coward!"

"Who the hell cares about a bunch of disgusting Naturals?" The pilot snarled, aiming at the gathered group of soldiers.

A single beam blast suddenly rang out from the Infinite Justice Gundam's rifle and the GINN's head exploded. "What the hell? Why are you firing at me?"

"I will _not_ allow the senseless execution of defenseless soldiers!" Athrun yelled. "Stand down or I'll put you down!"

The pilot wisely dropped his rifle.

"Attention all ZAFT forces." Athrun growled as he keyed his radio. "This is Commander Athrun Zala in the Justice Gundam. The execution of surrendering Earth Forces soldiers will not be tolerated, anyone who shoots a surrendering soldier will be punished severely."

"Who the hell do think you are, Natural Lover?"

"Yeah! They deserve to this for JOSH-A!"

"Let's kill them all!"

Cheers filled the communication lines. Most of the ZAFT soldiers were out for blood. An eye for an eye. A massacre for a massacre.

"Very well then." Athrun sighed. "All members of the Zala Team and any other willing ZAFT soldiers, I order you to stop the pointless slaughtering of the surrendered soldiers wherever you can. The use of lethal force has been approved but please try to refrain from killing, if at all possible. I will take full responsibility for what happens here."

Across the battlefield, groups of mobile suits from the Zala Team quickly gathered around the captured Earth Alliance soldiers. Many of the ZAFT soldiers wisely chose to avoid these groups, more out of fear of the Zala Team than anything else. A small few like-minded pilots, including Shiho and her Savior Gundam, joined them in defending the captured soldiers but not all did as those two groups did.

"Out of the way!" A pair of GINN pilots shouted as they approached the Infinite Justice Gundam.

"Sorry. No can do." Athrun drawled.

"Why the hell are you bothering to protect these dogs?" Another pilot growled. "Look at what they did at Alaska! They don't even give a damn about their own forces!"

"Just back away before things get messy." Athrun scowled.

"Filthy Natural Lover! Then you deserve to die as well!" The first pilot yelled as they both raised their rifles.

But Athrun was much, much faster. Igniting his wrist blades, he sliced through the rifles cutting them in two.

"Gah!"

"What? Dammit! You'll pay for this Natural Lover!"

"Don't you two ever shut the fuck up?" Athrun asked, as he sliced through the heads of both GINNs. "There. Say anything else, and I'll have to kill you both."

"Julie was at Alaska! This is for her!" Another GINN pilot yelled as he aimed at a surrendering tank crew.

Suddenly, a brightly glowing pink beam sword sliced through his arm. "That's enough!" Lacus yelled, tears slowly welling up in her beautiful blue eyes, even as she raised her sword to strike again if necessary. "They're surrendering and ZAFT soldiers don't fire on surrendering enemies!"

"But they-"

"No buts or I kill you!" Lacus snarled, as the Chimera Gundam's eyes flashed with a blood red light. "We're ZAFT soldiers. We're better than them. We don't stoop to their level."

"Damn Natural Lover! You were at Alaska! Why the hell are you defending these damned animals?" A GuAIZ pilot growled as he crashed to the ground after his Guul had been destroyed by Shiho's Savior Gundam.

"Is this the true face of ZAFT then?" Shiho asked, instead of answering his question. "Who are the real animals, then? At least Alaska had some strategic value. This is nothing more than a meaningless, animalistic slaughter to quench a thirst for blind vengeance. I won't stand for it."

The GuAIZ pilot merely scowled, kicking the Savior Gundam in the chest, forcing it to take a step backwards before Shiho ignited a pair of glowing pink beam sabers and severed the head, arms and legs of the GuAIZ with two blindingly fast saber strokes, and as she disengaged the beam blades the Savior's eyes flashed with a bright green light. "There, are you done being stupid now?" Shiho asked the pilot, scowling at his disabled machine.

Meanwhile, high up in space, near Lagrange Point 4, a massive battle raged between Celestial Being and the A-LAWs space forces. Dozens of GNX-704T Ahead mobile suits sped towards the Celestial Being mothership known as the CBS-74 Ptolemaios 2, while others clashed with the Gundams, attenpting to keep them from effectively defending their ship. The battle descended into complete and utter chaos, however, as dozens of new mobile suits suddenly appeared from the blackness and entered the fray.

Dozens of Launcher and Sword Striker-equipped Daggers and ordinary Strike Daggers, along with with Orb M1 Astrays and custom ZAFT GuAIZs and GINNs streaked onto the battlefield.

Allelujah Haptism scowled as he impaled a Strike Dagger through the chest with his beam saber just as the blue mobile suit fired its beam rifle at the GN Archer. One of the Aheads, which had locked sabers with the Seravee Gundam, raised its beam rifle with its free hand and hit an M1 Astray with a blast from the weapon, destroying the mobile suit. Suddenly, a trio of bright green beams hit the Ahead, severing its head, and both arms, leaving it completely disabled.

"Wow, this is crazy." Dearka Elsman whistled as his Wing Gundam, currently in its flight mode, rumbled onto the battlefield.

Dearka's current machine was a customized version of a transformable mobile suit, or more specifically a Gundam, which had been used in the After Colony Era. The transformable machine now sported beam shield generators on its forearms, its single-barrel buster rifle had been upgraded to a twin-barrel buster rifle, beam sabers were hidden within the machine's shoulders and legs, and finally, the front skirt armor concealed a total of 24 micro-missiles, while the wings housed another 80 micro-missiles, with 40 missiles in each wing, 20 on the leading edges of the wings and 20 on the trailing edges.

"What's that?" Dearka scowled as a crimson machine, resembeling a Gundam, sped towards him.

His question was answered as the computer spoke. "Approaching mobile suit has been identified as the GNW-20000 Arche Gundam, piloted by known terrorist Ali-Al Sachez."

"What do we have here?" Ali smirked from within the cockpit of the Achre Gundam, as he sped towards the seemingly defensless Wing Gundam, which he had assumed was nothing more than a civilian shuttle.

Ali's eyes widened in shock and he quickly backed away as the shuttle suddenly began to transform into a mobile suit, the machine's eyes flashing with a bright green light. Dearka smiled slightly as he raised the twin buster rifle in his right hand, pointing the massive weapon directly at the Achre Gundam, and without any hesitation, Dearka fired, unleashing a full power blast.

An instant later, the crimson machine was engulfed within the blast from the Wing Gundam's rifle, and Ali screamed as the machine vaporzied around him, before finally exploding, taking him with it. All of the fighting instantly screeched to a halt when the massive form of the Excalibur suddenly faded into visibility and the voice of Lacus Clyne spoke through an automated hail.

"All forces in this vicinity are hereby ordered to cease fighting." Lacus's voice boomed from the speakers within the cockpit of each machine. "Anyone attempting to continue fighting for any reason will be eliminated." With those words, Lexi, the Excalibur's advanced AI, took over all of the mobile suit forces, completely disabling all of their weapons while simultaniously moving them towards the dagger-shaped ship's massive hanger bays.


	43. GENESIS Revealed

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 43**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

Meanwhile, back on Earth, the battle between Kira Yamato's Strike Gundam, outfitted with an Aile Striker pack, and Athrun Zala's Aegis Gundam, which was taking place on a small, uncharted island about 100 miles southwest of the Orb mainland, had become downright vicious.

"ATHRUN!" Kira shrieked as the two charged. He deflected Athrun's right beam saber with his shield, then severed the left arm at the shoulder with the beam blade of his sword before Athrun could put it to use. The Strike then kicked the Aegis in the head, sending it flying back, though Athrun managed to keep his machine on its feet before leaping backwards into the air, away from the furious pursuing Strike as the white machine fired its railguns, cannons, and shield-mounted gatling furiously.

Athrun grit his teeth. He'd driven Kira over the edge. Now, his friend, no, his enemy, knew what it was like!

"I'm going to..." Athrun scowled as the Strike began to descend on him. "KILL YOU!" A green jewel seed rushed through Athrun's mind before shattering behind his eyes.

Athrun activated the beam sabers in his machine's feet and flew forward, no longer caring about the attacks from the railguns and cannons.

The Aegis kicked at the Strike, the beam saber severing the Strike's left arm. The Strike's sword flashed forward, cutting through the Aegis's head, ripping it off. Athrun again kicked at the Strike, his saber this time cutting a gash in the Strike's chest, exposing the cockpit.

"ATHRUN!" Kira roared.

"KIRA!" Athrun roared in turn, transforming the Aegis into its mobile armor form and grabbing the Strike with its claws. He pulled the trigger for the Scylla, and the weapon charged, ready to fire a blast straight through Athrun's enemy…but then it died, and Aegis faded from red to gray. Athrun stared at his power monitor.

The Strike struggled, and Athrun saw the machine look at the Aegis, at him. Kira was as ready to kill him as he was to kill Kira.

Athrun had sworn, though. He'd sworn to kill Kira.

Athrun activated the Aegis Gundam's self-destruct and ejected.

The 00-Raiser tossed its solid blade into the air and Setsuna sprung both of his Armor Schneider combat knives out and stabbed one into the bottom of the Duel Gundam's beam saber, while the other sprouted from the underbelly of the Duel's shield. Yzak removed the shield quickly, but before he could even grab his remaining beam saber, Setsuna drew both of his and cut the Duel's arms free, then stabbed them into its shoulders.

Still faster than a stunned Yzak could react, Setsuna used his glowing beam sabers to cut free the missile launchers mounted on the Duel's legs. Yzak instinctively opened up with his CIWS, the only weapon he had left, only to find both of the 00-Raiser's combat knives buried in the two barrels.

All this in the few seconds the 00-Raiser's solid sword remained in the air, as the 00-Raiser grabbed its main weapon once more and, green eyes flashing with a seeming fire, the solid blade flashed through the air.

Setsuna hadn't even blinked as he stepped away from his foe.

"You're not a threat to me or my friends any longer." Setsuna said coldly, pupils dilated, brown irises engulfing almost his entire eyes, appearing faceted like a diamond. Tears of blood leaked from Setsuna's eyes, staining his once-pristine uniform.

Fractures spread through the frame of the 00-Raiser as the machine initiated Trans-Am, even as, before Setsuna's very eyes, the Duel fell apart, the pieces exploding, and the cockpit landing safely in the water.

"Hold together, Gundam." Setsuna said, turning his now glowing machine to face the other battle. The Aegis ran out of power as he watched and, knowing what would happen, Setsuna rushed forward, further straining the 00-Raiser's badly damaged frame, already pushed past its limits.

The glowing form of the 00-Raiser ignited a beam saber with a flash, severing the Aegis's claws and freeing the Strike at the same instant the clawed mobile armor exploded.

"The Naturals are fools for thinking they can take Boaz." Ezalia Joule commented smugly, as she, along with Rau Le Creuset and Patrick Zala stood within the Aprilius One command center.

An aide approached Patrick. "Sir, Admiral Kessel has been organizing the force at Jachin Due to reinforce the garrison at Boaz and drive the Earth Forces back."

Zala smirked, not caring who was organizing such a force. "Yes." He said. "Let's crush that pitiful force at Boaz. Have all nearby forces move to reinforce Boaz. We're going to destroy every last one of them."

Rau found this all so amusing. Muruta Azrael and Patrick Zala had been so easy to manipulate. It was always those who believed themselves impossible to manipulate that were the easiest to manipulate. They believed themselves to be controlling their side and this war like a chess player. In reality, he was the player and they were nothing more than his lowly pawns.

Perhaps it was time to stoke the fires one last time before Azrael unleashed the Alliance's surprise. "Chairman Zala..." He began.

Zala glanced over his shoulder. "Yes, what is it Le Creuset?"

"I'm sure the Earth Forces are well aware of the strength of Boaz's forces and that defeating them would be no easy task." Rau replied. "But I can't imagine they'd attack it if they didn't have something up their sleeve."

Patrick raised an eyebrow in a questioning manner. "What are you getting at?"

"It's difficult for me to say, but as you know, there are a number of wild cards in play," Rau explained. "Wild cards like the Freedom, the Justice and Lacus Clyne." He noted those two in particular because he knew it would hit Patrick the most, given that the Freedom was the one originally stolen and the Justice was the one his son, Athrun, had taken.

Patrick's face turned into an angry scowl. "Are you trying to say that they may have once again acquired their nuclear capabilities?"

"I know." Rau said softly. "It doesn't seem possible."

Rau was about to continue when he was suddenly interrupted by the enraged voice of Kira Yamato. "Rau Le Creuset, you stupid, genocidal fuck!"

"Where is that coming from?" Patrick roared.

"It's coming from the Freedom!" One on the technicians reported, zooming an exterior camera in on the blue winged Gundam, which was wielding a pair of glowing beam sabers, as it sped into the Aprilius One space dock, effortlessly cleaving Nazca and Laurasia-class ships in half along the way.

"Sir!" The technician yelled. "The Freedom, it's changing!"

"What do you mean?" Patrick asked, clearly enraged as the video feed appeared on the main monitor. Everyone in the command center watched in awe as the image of the Freedom Gundam slowly dissolved and changed.

The machine retained its original color scheme, but that was the only thing which went unaltered. A green orb appeared in the Freedom's chest, the physical shield on the left forearm was replaced by one which was much sleeker, even as another, smaller shield appeared on its right forearm and the blue wings were replaced by brightly glowing, pure white angel wings.

"Patrick Zala." Kira growled. "I know about your super weapon, GENESIS, and I promise that if you use it, I will personally make your life a living hell." With that, the unknown machine, which was previously believed to be the stolen Freedom Gundam, began to glow with a blood red light, even as it transformed into its flight mode and streaked away, leaving brightly glowing afterimages in its wake.

Three days later, Patrick Zala sat within the control room for GENESIS, with Rau standing at his side.

"We are now at the minimun required firing charge." One of the technicians reported.

"Fire!" Patrick ordered.

Nuclear energy suddenly burst from the center of GENESIS and collided with the alignment mirror, reflecting rays of energy back to the main body of GENESIS, a massive burst of energy exploding outwards a moment later.

And hell was unleashed upon the Earth Forces fleet.

The massive energy blast tore through the fleet. Nothing could stop it. Nothing could withstand it. The hulls of even the mightiest ships in the Alliance fleet were nothing compared to the firepower of GENESIS. Dozens of Agamemnon, Nelson, and Drake-class ships were destroyed in an instant, alongside countless Alliance mobile armors and mobile suits. The armor of their hulls and machines might as well be made of paper against the powerful blast of GENESIS. In a matter of seconds, half of the Alliance fleet was gone.

Just about everyone watching was stunned and horrified. The surviving Earth Alliance Forces, the Three Ships Alliance fleet and even the ZAFT forces could only stare at the devastation brought upon the Alliance forces.

"GENESIS fired at 60 percent maximum output." A technician reported.

"Estimated fifty percent of enemy forces destroyed." Another added. "The enemy forces are retreating."

"Commence cool-down. Remove reflector mirror one and move mirror two into position."

Up on the command platform, Patrick Zala and Rau Le Creuset grinned at what they had wrought.

"Your Excellency, I am astonished to see how incredible GENESIS truly is." Rau commented.

"There is no point in fighting a war unless your side has the means to end it with victory." Patrick replied.

Patrick Zala stood up from his chair.

"Courageous soldiers of ZAFT!" He shouted. "We can no longer tolerate the aggression of the arrogant Naturals! Once again, the PLANTs have come under nuclear attack! This is no longer a war! It is a campaign of extermination! We can no longer forgive the Naturals who commit these atrocities without remorse!"

"Our new future! For the light of creation is with us! This is a day of history, marking the advent of a bright new world of Coordinators! The new Mankind!"

The control room filled with cheers and chants of 'Victory'.

The surviving Alliance forces were now in full retreat. However, a number of ZAFT forces were less than willing to let them leave. GINNs and GuAIZs chased after retreating Strike Daggers and 105 Daggers as ZAFT warships fired on the fleeing Earth Alliance warships.

"Stop it!" Kira shouted, undocking from the METEOR and firing on a pair of GINNs with his plasma cannons, severing their heads. "Stop firing on those that aren't fighting back, you fucking cowards!" Kira snarled and even as he disabled the two mobile suits, he accessed the Excalibur's computer.

"Wha-what the hell is that?" A GuAIZ pilot asked, as the Excalibur suddenly faded into visibility beside the Archangel, Eternal and Kusanagi. An instant later, all of the Earth Alliance and ZAFT mobile suits and warships lost power as the Excalibur unleashed a massive EMP blast. Even the control room for GENESIS was plunged into complete and utter blackness.

"It's not supposed to end like this!" Rau roared, as he bolted towards where he thought the door was. To his relief, the door opened, but he stopped his panicked sprint a moment later, when he noticed a pair of blood red eyes glaring at him through the darkness of the corridor.

Rau took a step back as the corridor was once again illuminated, not by the lights, but by a pair of blood red fireballs, as the brightly glowing orbs flew by less than a foot from his head. Rau's eyes widened as the creature stepped into the dim light, it was humanoid, but its skin was grey, and it had nearly a dozen blood red eyes splayed across its face. Rau didn't hesitate, raising his pistol and quickly emptying his entire clip into the creature, killing it, with that done, he continued moving towards the hanger.


	44. Divinity vs Providence

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 44**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

In the cockpit of the Chimera Gundam, Lacus Clyne listened as the ZAFT pilots argued with one another; all of them voices she recognized.

"What are you doing, Athrun?" Yzak Joule yelled from the cockpit of the Duel Gundam.

"I'm capturing this machine!" Athrun Zala responded. Well, that solved that mystery, a small part of Lacus's mind noted. Athrun was piloting the Aegis.

"What was that?" Yzak shouted.

"We were told to destroy it, you're disobeying orders!" Dearka Elsman growled from the cockpit of the Buster Gundam.

"You two shouldn't be talking about disobeying orders!" Athrun retorted. "We've seen how this thing performs. If we have the chance to capture it, all the better. This isn't about personal glory, now let's go!"

"I have to agree with Athrun." Nicol Amalfi's voice replied from the cockpit of the Blitz Gundam. "Besides, we were told to destroy it only if we couldn't capture it."

"Damn it...that bastard." Yzak muttered.

Throughout all this, Lacus remained silent. She wanted to call Kira for help, but felt certain that he was already on his way, and she knew that any communications attempts would be intercepted by the Aegis.

Taking a deep breath, Lacus pressed a button on the arm of her seat, revealing the self-destruct controls for the Chimera.

_'I'm sorry, Kira, Cagalli.'_ Lacus thought, as tears floated from her eyes. _'Please hurry. I don't want to leave you...but I can't let them find out that I'm in here.'_

"GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM HER, YOU BASTARDS!" Cagalli shrieked in rage as the Akatsuki roared into the fight, grabbing the Aegis Gundam's claws and forcibly prying them open before then slamming a beam saber through the crimson machine's cockpit, and finally obliterating it with a blast from her twin buster rifle.

As soon as the Chimera had been freed, the golden machine's DRAGOON units moved in and opened fire on the three remaining Gundams, the glowing green beam blasts piercing the cockpits of the Blitz, Buster and Duel Gundams, and the three machines vanished within a trio of massive fireballs.

As the three fireballs slowly faded, all of the Excalibur's launch doors opened, and millions upon millions of mobile suits, and fighter craft, from various timelines and alternate realities, launched from the massive vessel and swarmed towards GENESIS.

Among the mobile suits were machines from ZAFT, the Orb Union, the Earth Alliance and even the A-LAWs, not to mention dozens of Gundam units. The Orb Union mobile suit compliment consisted exclusively of Astrays and Murasames. The Earth Alliance mobile suit compliment consisted mostly of Dagger Ls, Deep Forbiddens and Windams, although there were a few Strike Daggers as well. The ZAFT mobile suit compliment consisted of GuAIZ-Rs, ZAKUs and GOUFs. And finally, the A-LAWs mobile suit compliment consisted exclusively of Aheads. In addition to the millions of mobile suits, six warships also launched from the Excalibur's hangers; the Archangel, the Dominion, the Purity, the Minerva, the Izumo and finally, a ship from a completely diffrent universe, the sleek and fast Soveregin-class ship known as the Enterprise-E.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the battlefield, the angelic Divinity Gundam was very clearly toying with the pink and red colored Destiny Impulse Gundam of ZAFT as it continued to defend GENESIS, and the machine's pilot, Mayu Asuka was growing tired of being toyed with.

"Just die already!" Mayu screamed, charging in with her anti-ship sword.

Also tired of this game, Kira Yamato dodged, cutting apart the anti-ship sword with his wrist-mounted beam sabers, he then deactivated the weapons and grabbed hold of the Destiny Impulse, and Mayu watched in horror as the Divinity's shield split down the middle.

Mayu tried to grab her beam rifle, but Kira fired both of his hip-mounted rail guns at the Destiny Impulse's legs, the beam shielded shells effortlessly slicing through the ZAFT machine's legs. Kira then fired his twin plasma cannons, severing the machine's right arm and head.

Suddenly, a solid blade emerged from within the Divinity's shield, stabbing straight into the cockpit armor of the Destiny Impulse, and the blade began to glow with heat as it slowly forced its way through the armor.

"Hahahaha!" Kira laughed maliciously, shooting down any who tried to interfere without paying any real attention to them. "You were fun, for a time. If you can entertain me until your brother shows up, maybe, just maybe, I'll be merciful and kill you quickly...or, if you're really lucky, I might even let you live."

Mayu's terrified screams filled the communications lines as the superheated blade began to pierce into the Destiny Impulse's cockpit at an agonizingly slow pace.

"Any last words?" Kira asked cruelly. "Will you cry for your mommy? Beg for your brother to come save you? Or maybe cry to god for help. Not that it would matter...god is an illusion for control after all."

"GET AWAY FROM HER!" Shinn Asuka roared, as the Destiny Gundam screamed in, its wings of light leaving blinding afterimages in its wake.

"It's been fun, Mayu." Kira smirked, looking back at the Destiny Impulse. "But you're a hindrance now!"

The Divinity's heat blade suddenly stabbed forward, splitting Mayu in two at the waist, the wound immediately cauterized by the heat as the blade pierced out of the Destiny Impulse's back. The Divinity's eyes flashed with a bright yellow light as the angelic machine finally released the Destiny Impulse and flew away as it exploded, while firing on the Destiny with its twin beam rifles.

Kira scowled as he activated the Divinity's electrified heat whip, setting it to maximum power, not caring that it would drain all of the Divinity's reserve battery power. An instant later, the angelic machine lashed out with the heat whip, the weapon quickly wrapping itself around the Destiny's waist. A storm of electricity overtook the Destiny less than a second later, even as Kira added fire to the mix with the Divinity's quad flamethrowers, and finally the ZAFT machine exploded.

The Divinity flew away, trailing dozens of afterimages, as the Destiny exploded. Kira raised the visor of his helmet in order to see as tears of blood flowed from his twin orbs.

Kira's eyes would've shocked any who looked at them. The pupils were dilated into seeming non-existence, and the irises almost completely engulfed them. The irises were also faceted, like a diamond, and shifted through countless colors, the whole spectrum of light flashing through Kira's eyes as blood continued to flow from them.

The battle around Jachin Due had intensified even more. The Alliance forces had smashed through most of the outer ZAFT lines and were battling the rear defense forces that were protecting the space fortress itself.

But they weren't the only ones. The battered Zala Team, formerly of ZAFT, had managed to slice through a section of the ZAFT line, opening a path for the Purity and the Promethesus to fire on GENESIS. But they had paid for it. Besides the loss of both the Izumo and the Kusanagi, the Enterprise-E had sustained heavy damage, with several large breaches in its hull. The Minerva had lost its positron cannon and had even more breaches in its hull. Added to this, over half of their mobile suits had been shot down.

"I demand that ZAFT cease firing GENESIS immediately!" Lacus said from the cockpit of the Chimera Gundam, even as the Purity and the Prometheus reached the Zala Team. "We've all experienced the pain and sorrow of nuclear attacks and yet we're inflicting the same suffering on them now. Will anything be made right if you fire it? If you kill more innocent men, woman and children, is that justice? Don't you realize what these attacks on each other are giving birth to? Do you want even more sacrifices?"

The Divinity, Eclipse, Akatsuki, Justice and Strike Freedom Gundams were nestled within the menacing confines of their METEOR units as they raced towards Jachin Due and GENESIS, the five pilots listening grimly to Lacus's broadcast as they approached the massive weapon. Athrun desperately hoped that he would still be able reason with his father; and make him see the truth of what he was doing, before it was too late. But regardless of the outcome, Kira and the others were going to destroy GENESIS.

Suddenly, Kira felt something. Something was wrong. He knew he had to check it out. Kira turned and headed off towards the source of the feeling.

"Kira!" Shinn called out as he left.

"Something's wrong here." He replied.

Although the ZAFT warship Principality had been destroyed by the Calamity, Forbidden and Raider Gundams, both the Archangel and Dominion had already paid a heavy price for the battle. Their hulls had been pierced in numerous locations, most of their weapons were destroyed or disabled, and there were a number of fires raging within the two mighty ships.

"Blocks 125 through 144 are sealed!" Sai reported.

"Thrust is reduced to fifty percent!" Arnold said, trying to keep the ship steady.

"Thirty-three percent of sensors are offline!" Mir added.

"We need to stop the fires now." Sumeragi Lee Noriega, the current captian of the Archangel, said, absently hearing Natarle giving similar orders on the Dominion. "Before they inflict more damage to the ship. Tell Murdoch to seal off the sections that are on fire and vent the air out. Once the fires are out and the air has been vented back in, they need to get the engines up and running."

"Yes ma'am." Sai said, rushing to carry out his orders.

Rau was shocked to see the Archangel and Dominion fighting side-by-side, and was even more surprised as he passed by the wreckage of the Strike Gundam. Distantly, he realized that he'd wanted Mu to survive, and he was disappointed that his nemesis was gone.

He glanced at the debris field left behind by the warship Principality, which was actually from a completely diffrent timeline, but had quickly allied itself with ZAFT upon entering the fray. He then looked back to the Dominion and shook his head.

"Oh Azrael..." He said. "What a disappointment you were."

Azrael could have at least taken a few of the PLANTs with him. But no matter. After GENESIS was fired at Earth, the surviving Earth bases on the moon would strike back with every last nuke they had.

Rau approached the Archangel. The legged ship had been a thorn in his side for far too long. He'd deal with it first, then finish the Dominion.

"That mobile suit..." Cagalli growled, as the Akatsuki, Eclipse, Justice and Strike Freedom sped towards the Providence.

"That looks like..." Athrun started. He and Shinn had managed to shake off their surprise, and were merely content with the realization that they wouldn't be fighting the Calamity, Forbidden or Raider Gundams again, since they had been captured and immobilized by the Excalibur's tractor beams.

"It's the Providence Gundam!" Shinn exclaimed.

"Damn!" Cagalli swore as she, Murrue, Shinn and Athrun opened up on the new machine.

The Providence dodged and fired back with its beam rifle. However, Athrun and Shinn rushed forward, their armor deflecting the attacks. Rau smirked, and deployed his DRAGOONs, attacking the group from all sides.

As he did so, he felt something. A presence he had only felt once before. It wasn't Mu nor was it Rey.

It was Kira Yamato. The Divinity flew in, METEOR beam cannons blazing, forcing Rau to evade. But he didn't let up his assault on the four defenders, even as Kira activated one of his beam swords and swung it at the Providence.

"Not you again." Rau said.

"Oh, for fuck's sake." Kira muttered, even as he began to broadcast his impending arguement with Rau on every communications channel.

The Providence's DRAGOON units spread out, firing on the Divinity. Kira pulled a quick series of rolls, twists and dives, evading the beams before firing the METEOR's missiles at the Providence. But the DRAGOONs quickly repositioned themselves and fired, creating a net of beams in front of the Providence, sparing it from harm.

As the Divinity and Providence began to fight each other, the Akatsuki, Eclipse, Justice and Strike Freedom ejected their METEOR units, and sped towards Jachin Due.

"What's the delay? Hurry!" Patrick yelled, even as the technicians in the GENESIS control room exchanged nervous glances. "It'll be over when we finish this."

"Mr. Chairman, we've already won the battle!" Officer Yuki objected. "Sir, if we fire, we'll wipe out half the life on Earth! There have already been enough sacrifices!"

A gunshot suddenly echoed through the control room, shocking everyone. In Patrick's hand was the still-smoking pistol which he had just used to shoot Yuki.

"They're right there! Our enemies are still out there! Why would you even suggest that we not fire it?" Patrick ranted as everyone stared at him in horror and disbelief. "We must fire it again! Before they have a chance to retaliate, the enemy must be annihilated! Why won't you all understand that?"

As Patrick spoke, he pushed one of the operators from his console and started typing away.

"Your Excellency! Our forces are still in the line of fire!" An officer protested.

"All of our soldiers are fighting for one thing: victory!" Patrick shouted. "I'm sure they're prepared to pay the cost!"

"Sir!" The officer objected as Yuki weakly reached into his coat and pulled out his own pistol, aiming it at Zala.

"You...bastard..." He said weakly. Patrick looked over at him just as he pulled the trigger, the bullet hitting its mark.

He fired three times, each bullet hitting Patrick's chest. Patrick let out a liquid gurgle as his body floated backwards. Yuki let out one last gasp of breath before he died. By now, confusion and horror filled the ranks of the ZAFT personnel, and many began to abandon their positions.

At that moment, Athrun, Cagalli and their comrades entered the command center. The sight of a group of armed soldiers broke the courage and morale of the remaining ZAFT officers. Everyone fled, leaving only those seven pilots and the dying Patrick Zala.

A horrified Athrun rushed to his father's side. He may not have been a doctor, but Athrun knew his father was dying. And there was nothing, he or anyone else could do.

Gently, Athrun and Cagalli pushed Patrick down to the ground.

Patrick grasped his son's shoulder. "Athrun...don't let...Junius Seven happen again," he choked. "You must...make the world...ours." Patrick coughed blood and the life faded from his eyes.

Tears began to well up in Athrun's eyes. "Father!"

Meanwhile, the Divinity and Providence continued their battle.

"You're nothing but an irritant! A pest!" Rau shouted, firing his rifle.

"And you're nothing but a donkey-raping shit eater!" Kira retorted, his blood boiling.

A lone beam hit the METEOR's right cannon, forcing Kira to discard it before it exploded. But before the fireball had faded, Rau lunged at Kira with his beam saber ignited. Kira pulled up the remaining cannon, blocking the blade. Though he lost the cannon, the Divinity was spared any damage.

The Providence's DRAGOON units let loose a barrage on the Divinity. Kira, somehow, barely managed to evade them. But before he could retaliate, Rau fired at him.

"You're something that shouldn't have been allowed to exist, boy!" He roared, even as Kira evaded his shots.

"You're a million times worse then I have ever been, you brainless cunt!" Kira roared as he fired his remaining missiles at the Providence, forcing Rau and his DRAGOONs to stop their attack on him, so that they could shoot down the incoming missiles, that didn't last long. Kira fired the Divinity's rail guns, plasma cannons and the remaining cannons on the METEOR at Rau. But he effortlessly dodged them and returned fire with his DRAGOON units.

"If people learned of your existence, they would want to be just as you are. They would want to become like you!" He ranted as Kira struggled to avoid the numerous beam blasts surrounding him.

"Are you done talking out of your ass yet?" Kira snarled, having calmed down somewhat, even as a beam hit the METEOR's right wing, destroying its cannon and the now empty missile launcher. Kira growled as he drew his beam sabers and started deflecting as many of the beams as he could, while the Divinity's energy deflection armor bent other beams away, sending some of them towards the Providence.

"And that's the reason why your existence cannot be allowed!" Rau shouted, as a DRAGOON hit one of the METEOR's engines.

"Please, shut the fuck up!" Kira shrieked, dodging the Providence's beam blasts and deploying his own DRAGOON units, while simultaniously activating Trans-Am. "Even if that's true." Kira scowled, as the Divinity sped towards the Providence, the angelic machine glowing with a blood red light. "I'm not defined by my abilities alone!"

The crews of the Archangel and Dominion heard the conversation. Most of it made no sense to them, but both Natarle and Flay were shocked. They knew that voice!

Kira smirked slightly as his own glowing DRAGOON units shot down three of the Providence's DRAGOONs, but ten of the grey machine's DRAGOONs were still moving through the blackness, and now that Kira had destroyed three of the Providence's eleven DRAGOONs, the remaining eight seemed to have increased their speed, moving in and out of the line of fire before the beam blasts from the Divinity's own glowing DRAGOON units could hit their targets, the grey DRAGOONs then returning fire.

"Who's going to believe that line? Will they understand that?" Rau shouted as they continued to exchange fire. "Of course they won't! Nobody will!"

Rau lunged at Kira's side. Kira pulled out of the path, but his METEOR ended up taking the hit.

"It doesn't matter, you mindless moron!" Kira roared. "I believe in the future!"

"Ridiculous!" Rau said, pulling back, and aiming his rifle at the bridge of the Dominion, shocking everyone.

The Justice Gundam, now under the control of Lexi, the Excalibur's AI, fired its rifle and beam cannons on a hatch, exposing a tunnel leading into GENESIS, and the crimson machine quickly sped into the exposed passageway.

"Wrong move." Kira scowled, as six of his DRAGOON units ceased their attacks and surrounded the Providence with a transparent green, diamond-shaped beam shield, just as Rau pulled the trigger. Rau watched in shock as the beam blast bounced off the beam shield, forcing him to dodge his own shot.

"Dance!" Kira laughed as the Providence continued to dodge its own beam blast which was continually being reflected by the beam shield which surrounded him. After a moment of mild amusement, Kira raised both of his beam rifles and added two of his own beam blasts, the searing bolts entering the diamond-shaped shield surrounding the grey machine and forcing it to dodge more frantically then before.

"I'm not letting you go, you'll die in there, one way or another." Kira smirked in triumph, as the Providence tried to recall its DRAGOON units, only for the weapons to uselessly bounce away after impacting the beam shield which was still being generated by the Divinity's own DRAGOON units.

"I'll take those, if you don't mind." Kira grinned as the Providence's DRAGOON units suddenly lost their Phase Shift, only for the armor to reactivate an instant later, the weapons now bearing the pure white color of the Divinity's own DRAGOON units.

Within the GENESIS control room, the countdown for Jachin Due's self-destruct reached zero.

Explosions tore through the space fortress as the firing sequence for GENESIS initiated. A nuclear explosion began in GENESIS and shot out of the weapon as the Divinity pushed away from the Providence. The beam tore through the shattered remains of the Providence Gundam that fought against peace, obliterating it, the nuclear detonation catching the Divinity in its wake.

Within GENESIS, the Justice Gundam detonated, and the nuclear explosion tore the weapon of mass destruction apart from the inside out.


	45. The Super Yamato

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 45**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

Back on Earth, a battle raged in the Northern Atlantic Ocean, between a fleet of Earth Alliance ships and a fleet of ships from Nazi Germany. Both sides were firing relentlessly, but the Earth Alliance fighter aircraft had the edge over the vastly outdated German aircraft.

The Earth Alliance fleet consisted of eight Arkansas-class destroyers, six Fraser-class destroyers and one Spengler-class aircraft carrier, while the German fleet consisted of five Deutschland-class cruisers, five Narvik-class destroyers, four Bismarck-class battleships and one Zeppelin-class aircraft carrier.

The Earth Alliance fighter aircraft consisted of F-7D Spearhead and FX-550 Sky Grapsers, while the German fighters consisted of Arado Ar E.561s, Arado Ar E.581.4s, Focke-Wulf Fw-190s, Focke-Wulf Ta-183 Huckebeins, Hienkel He-162 Volksjagers, Messerschmitt Bf 109s, Messerschmitt Me-163 Komets, and Messerschmitt Me 262 Swallows.

The German bombers consisted of Arado Ar E.340s, Arado E.555s, Focke-Wulf Fw-200 Condors, Junkers Ju-87 Stukas, Junkers Ju-88 Destroyers, Hienkel He-111 Zwillings, Horten Ho-229s, Horten Ho-18As and Horten Ho-18Bs.

Even though the German fleet had more than enough aircraft, most of them, specifically the rocket-powered Me-163 Komets, would run out of fuel very quickly, and making an unpowered landing on an aircraft carrier in the middle of a battle was not the easist thing to do.

Kira Yamato scowled as he stood on the Excalibur's bridge, watching the battle as it was broadcast to the ship from the pair of ZGMF/TAR-X1 GINN Tactical Air Reconnaissance Types that were currently monitoring the naval conflict.

"Kira." Lacus spoke up. "We've just intercepted a transmission from the Orb Union."

"From Orb?" Cagalli asked, rushing to the pink-haired beauty's side.

"Yes." Lacus answered, even as she routed the audio through the speakers.

"This is Uzumi Nara Athha, the leader of the United Emirates of Orb." The voice of Cagalli's adoptive father spoke through the speakers. "Unidentified warship, please state your intentions."

The only answer was that of the Super Yamato opening up with its main guns, the massive shells hurtling through the air before then slicing through a pair of Aegis-class cruisers, igniting their ammo magazines and engulfing them in fire.

"This shit has to stop now!" Cagalli yelled, the anger in her voice catching everyone off-gaurd. The blonde-haired woman wasted no time in moving back to the helm, quickly putting the Excalibur into a steep dive, the dagger-shaped warship plunging into the Earth's atmosphere. As the Excalibur punched into the atmosphere, the ship's Phase Cloak activated, rendering the ship not only invisible, but also intangible, as it continued to dive unerringly towards the small island nation.

After only a few short moments, the Super Yamato had dispatched all of the Aegis-class ships sent to intercept it and had once again resumed moving towards the island nation, but it stopped unexpectedly when a single lance of green energy pierced the rear of the battleship.

"What the hell was that?" The Captian of the Super Yamato yelled, only to have his question answered an instant later, as the golden form of the Akatsuki Gundam, equipped with an upgraded 'Shiranui' space pack, which allowed atmospheric flight, suddenly appeared, the golden machine standing on the deck in front of the bridge of the Japanese warship, its cold blue eyes brightly glowing.

"You dare to attack my nation?" Cagalli shrieked an rage, even as the Akatsuki began to glow with the blood red light of Trans-Am. "I will make you pay for what you've done!"

In response to Cagalli's declaration, the Super Yamato once again opened fire with its main guns. To the horror of the Japanese sailors, all six of the huge shells bounced harmlessly off the golden machine's armor. Three of the shells plunged into the ocean while the other three shells tore through and obliterated the Super Yamato's lower triple-barrel artillery guns. Although the impacts of the shells did suceed in pushing the Akatsuki Gundam back far enough so that it was forced to ignite its thrusters and take to the air.

"I'M SICK AND TIRED OF LETTING THIS ENDLESS CYCLE OF KILLING CONTINUE!" Kira roared within the cockpit of the Divinity Gundam, as the angelic machine dove out of the heavens and landed on the Super Yamato's bow. "If it's your pleasure to commit war, then I will take all the pleasure FROM war, I will make it something so abhorrent that only the truly insane would ever think of engaging in it!" Pure white light surged and rippled around his body, so bright that it was visible through the Divinity Gundam's closed cockpit hatch, and Kira felt an awakening spread through every fiber of his being, as if each and every individual cell had suddenly opened a microscopic eye to glare at the monitors, to glare at the Super Yamato battleship.

To the crew of the Super Yamato, the Divinity Gundam appeared to be unarmed, but in reality, the machine's twin beam rifles were hanging from its hips, while the twin buster rifles were holstered on its back, both of the massive beam weapons concealed by the holoshroud.

"Shoot me down, if you can." Kira mocked, as he stood motionless on the bow of the ship.

"Open fire!" The Captain on the Super Yamato ordered. "Shoot those things out of the sky!"

As the crew moved to carry out their orders, a single shell slammed into the Divinity Gundam from the left, punching the angelic machine off of the Super Yamato's deck and forcing it to ignite its thrusters and take flight.

Kira scowled as his radar blared, notifiying him of multiple surface ships which were approaching from his left. The amethyst-eyed man frowned at the approaching forms of the Japanese battleships Haruna, Kongo and Nagato, the destroyers Akatsuki, Ayanami and Hibiki, and finally, the aircraft carriers Akagi, Soryu and Katsuragi.

"Japanese Imperial Navy battleships Haruna, Kongo and Nagato, destroyers Akatsuki, Ayanami and Hibiki, and aircraft carriers Akagi and Soryu." Kira sighed, reading the information as it appeared on one of the subscreens, even as the approaching battleships and destroyers opened fire with their main guns. "I suppose I should shed at least a part of my massive advantage and make this a somewhat fair-ish fight." Kira smiled as he dodged the incoming shells, watching in amusement as one of the shells slammed into the deck of the Super Yamato.

"Excalibur to Akatsuki and Divinity." Lacus's voice called, as the still approaching Japanese ships fired another salvo.

"What is it, Lacus?" Kira and Cagalli answered in unison, even as Kira freed and ignited a beam saber from his left hip before slicing a trio of incoming shells, which had been fired by the Ayanami, cleanly in half.

"Please return to the Excalibur." Lacus ordered, as the Excalibur dropped the veil of its Phase Cloak, the ship seemingly appearing out of thin air as it gently touched down one the surface of the ocean a mile away. "We're preparing to launch both the Minerva and the upgraded Bismarck."

"Understood." The former twins once again answered in unison as the two Gundams ignited their thrusters with a flash and took off towards the Excalibur. By this time, the ten Japanese ships had arranged themselves into a defensive formation around the Super Yamato and had begun to retreat.

"Captain." Lacus said. "The Japanese ships have moved into a defensive formation around the Super Yamato and are steaming away from us at full speed."

"Let them go." Murrue ordered. "Maybe they've realized that they can't win against us."

"Lacus." Cagalli sweetly said as she walked through the door and stopped beside her lover, lowering her voice to a seductive whisper. "If you disobey those orders, I'll let you do anything you want to me later tonight." Lacus allowed a deep blush to spread across her face as she silently gave both the Bismarck and the Minerva launch clearance.

Almost immediately after lauch, the Bismarck, which unlike the Minerva didn't posess Mirror Coated Phase Shift armor, had to steer sharply to the right in order to avoid hitting wrecked fragments of the Aegis-class cruisers, turning directly into the line of fire of all ten Japanese warships, which had now reversed their course and were steaming straight towards the Excalibur.

Not only was the Celestial Being battleship Bismarck greatly outgunned, but it also suffered from mechanical problems with her main armament; experimental 32-inch guns, housed in two turrets at the front of the ship and two more at the rear, which could fire a 15,620 pound, MCPS armored shell from each of the three barrels. In addition to its massive main armament, the Bismarck also posessed a secondary armament in the form of 18-inch guns, which like the main armament were housed in two turrets at the front of the ship and two more at the rear, like the main 32-inch guns, the 18-inch guns fired a 15,620 pound, MCPS armored shell from each of the three barrels. Finally, for close range defense from attacking aircraft, the ship posessed hundreds of anti-aircraft beam guns and flak cannons.

The turrets of both the primary and secondary armaments were actually three-gun, and not triple-barrel, because each barrel could be elevated and fired independently. The upgraded Bismarck could fire any combination of their guns, including a broadside of all of its guns, which resulted in a total of 24 MCPS armored shells screaming through the air to impact on their helpless target.

The guns could be elevated from −8 degrees to +75 degrees, moving at up to 20 degrees per second. The turrets could rotate 300 degrees at the rate of up to 10 degrees per second and could even be fired back beyond the beam, which allowed the ship to fire on any vessels foolish enough to engage in a pursuit.

"All engines, full speed ahead, target the Japaense fleet and ready our 32-inch guns." Asuka Langley Soryu, the Captain of the Bismarck, ordered. "Have our 18-inch guns and anti-aircraft guns readied as well."

At the same time, the Minerva, under the command of Talia Gladys, was preparing its own weapons. Although at the command of their leader, Kira Yamato, only the projectile weapons and anti-aircraft beam guns were being prepared for combat, while the larger calibur beam weapons were being brought online, they were set to their standby mode. Even as the Bismarck and Minerva brought their weapons online, nearly two dozen Earth Alliance ships suddenly appeared on the Excalibur's radar.

"Captain!" Lacus yelled. "We've got a large Earth Alliance fleet approaching us from behind!"

"What?" Murrue replied, whirling in her chair to look at Lacus.

"According to our sensors, the Alliance flagship is carrying the Calamity, Forbidden and Raider Gundams." Lacus answered as an image of the approaching Earth Alliance fleet appeared on one of the subscreens. The Earth Alliance fleet was nothing if not impressive, consisting of dozens of ships, including attack submariines, Arkansas-class destroyers, Danilov-class destroyers and Fraser-class destroyers and six Spengler-class carriers.

Suddenly, Kira realized that the Excalibur was caught in a massive pincer attack. "Minerva!" The amethyst-eyed man urgently spoke. "Alter your course, 1-8-0 reletive, bring all of your weapons online and prepare your mobile suits for launch! We have a massive Earth Alliance fleet approaching from behind!"

The Minerva was quick to follow its new orders, turning around to face the Earth Alliance fleet and moving in between the approaching fleet and the Excalibur, even as the catapult doors on the winged warship opened, while the Bismarck continued its battle with the Super Yamato.

The three Biological CPUs entered the hanger where their mobile suits and the doctors with their drugs were waiting. Each took their vial and downed the contents. They then put on their helmets and climbed into the cockpit of their machines.

At that moment, Azrael's face appeared on their main screens. "Say boys…"

Orga Sabnak looked up at his display screen. "What?"

"It's extremely important that you don't damage Morgenroete or the Mass Driver." Azrael ordered. "Do you understand?"

"But we can destroy anything else, right?" Shani Andras asked.

Azrael simply nodded.

"Oh yeah!" A pleased Clotho Buer smirked.

"Why don't you guys shut up." Orga sighed as the mobile suit hold doors opened. The Forbidden launched first, heading for Onogoro. The Raider followed, transforming into its mobile armor mode. Then the Calamity launched, quickly landing on the Raider, using it as a flight platform.

"Twilight, Eclipse, please proceed to the catapults." Meyrin Hawke's voice echoed through the hanger bay. "Providence and Legend are to remain on standby."

As the Twilight and Eclipse launched from the Minerva, the Calamity, Forbidden and Raider launched from the Earth Alliance carrier Barack H. Obama.

"Wow, that's just sad." Kira shook his head as the specs of the Alliance carrier, or more specifically the name of the ship, appeared on one of the Divinity's subscreens as the Gundam was moved to the Excalibur's centerline catapult. "The Alliance actually named a carrier after that person."

"Divinity, you are cleared for launch." Lexi spoke, her voice echoing through the hanger as the Akatsuki, Chimera, Destiny, Strike Freedom and Sword Impulse were moved to their own launch catapults, even as the Earth Alliance ships opened fire with a barrage of missiles.

The missiles descended towards Onogoro en masse. Orb linear tanks, AA guns and M1 Astrays fired on the missiles, intercepting many of them. But many more still hit, destroying tanks and gun emplacements as the mobile suits dodged backwards.

The hangars containing the Archangel, Dominion, Eternal, Enterprise-E, Prometheus and Ptolemaios 2 opened, and the six ships launched to aid the battle. Sitting on the decks of the vessels were crouching M1 Astrays and Murasames, which quickly came to life as the vessels opened their hangers to release even more mobile suits, and even a few Gundams. More missiles rained down, and the new arrivals opened fire on the missiles as well. Even still, a large number of missiles impacted on civilian residences near the shore, though they'd thankfully already been evacuated.

Several Alliance carriers approached the shores, opening their holds to release Strike Daggers.

"Juri, the Earth Forces are sending in their mobile suits." Mayura reported. Juri gasped, and Asagi gulped slightly in fear.

As orders were given to reinforce the Izanagi shoreline, carriers appeared overhead, dropping mobile suits as the Archangel began to launch its machines.

Juri's Astray leapt back, the machine drawing its beam saber, but the Strike Dagger she was facing slammed into her, knocking her back, then aimed its rifle at her. At that instant, a beam tore into its arm.

"Back off!" Mayura said, rushing forward to protect Juri.

"Mayura!" Asagi called out as she dueled a Strike Dagger with beam sabers. Suddenly, a fast-moving shadow passed by, drawing the attention of all pilots upwards as the Divinity flew overhead.

Suddenly, the Divinity began to glow with a blood red light as its weapons snapped into place and Kira opened fire, destroying heads, limbs and weapons on the Strike Daggers en masse with precision accuracy. Several Alliance pilots cried out in fear as the angelic machine released its shield and descended towards them, grabbing both its beam sabers.

The Divinity landed on the ground, instantly slashing off the right arms and legs of two Strike Daggers as its physical shield landed twenty meters ahead of it. Faster than most people could blink, the Divinity flew forward, replacing its beam sabers on its hips, snatched its shield, and surged out towards the battling fleets. The Alliance pilots gaped at the unbelievable display of power, while the Astray pilots gasped in shock.

Kira glanced to his left as the Freedom appeared, and without any hesitation, he opened an audio-only communications line. "Kira Yamato, please cover my allies." He said to his younger-self, even as he copied the the IFF codes for all of Celestial Being's machines to the Freedom's computer. With that done, the Divinity Gundam, still glowing with the red light of Trans-Am, sped away, vanishing behind its Phase Cloak

"Go! Go! Go!" An Earth Alliance Lieutenant shouted, leading several squads of Strike Daggers towards a group of Orb Astrays and tanks.

Just after they passed a pair of damaged buildings, though, flames suddenly exploded from nowhere, expanding in a massive fireball that consumed a dozen Strike Daggers all at once. The other Strike Daggers backed away as a large form materialized in the center of that inferno, and as the flames began to die down somewhat, a glowing red demon stepped forth.

The mobile suit was like none they'd ever seen before, and many backed away, absolute terror gripping their hearts at the sight before them, even as the blood red glow faded from the machine's armor.

The machine before them was solid black, and a few who had read the reports instantly recognized that the mobile suit was the CB-X60D Divinity Gundam. But it was obviously no longer that machine. The mobile suit before them seemed like it had seen ten thousand battles, with very clear scratches and battle scars covering it nearly head to foot, the scarring a gray-white against the previously pure white mobile suit's body, a pair of blood red angel-like wings on its back, similar scarring and even what seemed to be holes filling the wings.

The worst of it was the head, though. The left side looked in pristine condition, while the right side was jagged and scarred-looking, with the jaw appearing fractured and a large gash running through the right eye, which seemed as though the camera was exposed. Suddenly, the eyes flashed to life, the left eye appearing its original purple while the right eye glowed an angry, demonic red, even as the machine reached behind its back, freeing and igniting a twin bladed beam scythe.

It was perhaps a tribute to the courage of the Earth Forces pilots that none of them wet themselves with this demonic machine standing before them, looking for all the world like the grim reaper itself come to claim their souls, now armed with a large, twin beam scythe.

Suddenly, with incredible speed, the Divinity rushed forward and swung its scythe, cutting apart three machines that were too slow in just that one swing. The Daggers in the back, their pilots quaking with fear, raised their rifles and fired on the scythe-wielding mobile suit.

Suddenly, a salvo of shells from the Super Yamato slammed into one of the Earth Alliance Danilov-class destroyers, punching through the reletively thinly armored hull and detonating within the ship, engulfing it in a fireball.


	46. Freedom, Justice and Divinity

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 46**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

Kira watched in muted surprise as the Super Yamato suddenly opened fire on one of the Earth Alliance Danilov-class destroyers, the shells punching through the reletively thinly armored hull and detonating within the ship, engulfing it in a fireball. Using the unexpceted attack as a distraction, the Bismarck and Minerva quickly docked within the Excalibur's hanger and the massive, dagger-shaped vessel once again took to the air.

"Okay. That was random." The amethyst-eyed man muttered, even as he fired a full-burst from his weapons, aiming at the Calamity, only for the Forbidden to burst into the line of fire and deflect the beams back at the Divinity. "Two can play that game!" Kira smirked as he deflected the beam blasts back towards the Forbidden, and as Kira deflected the energy bolts he also fired a volley from his hip-mounted rail guns, while simultaniously unleashing his DRAGOON units, both the rail gun shells and the remote weapons hiding behind the beam blasts. The Forbidden once again deflected the searing green energy bolts, only to be thrown backwards an instant later as the rail gun shells and DRAGOON units slammed into it, the force of the impacts sending the green and white machine tumbling.

Before the Forbidden could reorient itself, the Divinity had ignited its thrusters and took off, the angelic machine's DRAGOON units once more docking on the Gundam's back as it sped away.

A squad of Orb Astrays fired on the Earth Alliance's Strike Daggers as they advanced into the city. The Daggers were numerous, but somehow, the defenders had managed to push them back, barely. However, things were about to change, as a solid black mobile suit suddenly landed before the Orb squadron.

"Captain! What is that?" A nervous Orb pilot asked.

"Another new Earth Forces machine." The Captain answered. "Destroy it!"

"For the preservation of our blue and pure world!" Duo Maxwell howled from the cockpit of the Deathscthye Gundam, as he fired his beam gatling guns at the Astrays.

The barrage mercilessly tore through many of the Astrays before they managed any kind of defense. The surviving Astrays backed away, moving behind buildings and trying to regroup from the assault. But Maxwell didn't give them a chance to. The Deathscythe's chest plate opened, as did its missile pods and small cannons emerged from the wrists. The remaining Astrays in the area fell quickly fell before this second barrage. Beams tore through buildings and the mobile suits standing behind them. A cluster of missiles impacted a trio of Astrays standing together, destroying them.

Suddenly, the Deathscythe jumped to the left, barely dodging a blue and red energy blast. Maxwell growled as the angelic form of the Divinity Gundam landed in front of him.

"Not bad." Kira commented. "But that's not going to be nearly good enough!"

Maxwell roared, firing all of his gatling guns at the Divinity. Kira pulled the Divinity into the air, evading the Deathscythe's shots and fired his left-hand rifle. The green beam beam pierced the Deathscythe's left twin gatling gun. Maxwell threw the weapon away just before it exploded.

"Damn you!" He shouted, firing back at the Divinity with his remaining gatling guns and the wrist-mounted beam gun

Kira sidestepped behind a row of buildings. The guns tore through the building, only to hit nothing. The Deathscythe's head turned back and forth, searching for the Divinity. Maxwell growled in frustration.

"Damn it!" He growled. "Where are you? Come and fight me coward!"

There was no response.

"Come on! Fight!"

Again, nothing.

"That's it! I'm gonna level this whole damn city!"

At that moment, the Divinity Gundam reappeared, now standing directly in front of the Deathscythe. The angelic machine was now glowing with a blood red light, its faceplate had split, revealing a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth and the green orb in the center of its chest was illuminated with an eerie green light.

The Divinity's beam rifle was inches from the Deathscythe's chest, while the twin barrels of the Deathscythe's gatling guns were inches from the Divinity's. The two mobile suits stayed there for a moment, locked in that position. Neither seemed willing to risk moving.

"I must admit." Kira said. "You're much better then most pilots, even if you are as wild as they get."

"I should be." Maxwell replied, sounding momentarily calm. "That's what made me the Hero of the Bloody Valentine."

_'The Hero of the Bloody Valentine?'_ Kira thought, his amethyst eyes widening in surprise, before then narrowing in rage.

"You son of a bitch!" He roared. "You're dead!"

"No, you are!" Maxwell shouted back.

The Deathscythe pushed the Divinity back before Kira could pull the trigger and swung its saber down. However, the Divinity was a much faster machine than its opponent, even without utilizing Trans-Am. Kira casually sidestepped the blow, leaving the Deathscythe's saber to slice through mere afterimages.

"Too slow!" He said, swinging his own saber down.

But the Deathscythe managed to raise its saber back up, blocking the blow. Maxwell then followed up with a kick to the Divinity's chest, sending the mobile suit stumbling back. The mass-murderer raised the Deathscythe's galting gun, aiming directly at the Divinity's cockpit.

But just before Maxwell could squeeze the trigger, one of the Divinity's DRAGOON units detached from the machine's back and fired a searing green beam blast that lanced through the air, piercing the twin gatling gun. The Deathscythe dropped the weapon as both machines leapt backwards and the twin gatling exploded.

Unbeknownst to fighters at large, a tragedy was about to happen. A family of four ran through the woods, trying to reach the boats that were evacuating the civilians of Orb. Shinn Asuka looked up at the mobile suits fighting above them. The two white mobile suits, one with blue wings, and the other with angelic white wings seemed to be struggling against the other four. Shinn really wasn't sure which ones were fighting for Orb and which ones were with the Earth Forces.

Suddenly, the black one, which had transformed into a bird-like mode, raced dangerously close overhead, forcing Shinn and his family to brace themselves as a strong gust of wind slammed into them.

"My phone!" Mayu cried out as her phone flew out of her pocket and fell down the side of the hit.

Mayu headed for her cell phone, but their mother grabbed her arm. "Forget about it. We have to go Mayu."

"But my phone!"

"Don't worry. I'll get it." Shinn said, running down the side of the hill.

The Calamity landed on the ground, targeting the Freedom. The Freedom entered HiMAT mode as it aimed at the Calamity.

Out of the corner of his eye, Orga spotted the family, and, grinning sadistically, shifted his machine's leg slightly to aim one missile at them.

Kira fired an instant before Orga, the hyper-velocity rounds of the rail guns slamming into the Calamity and knocking it slightly off-target, most of its missiles going wide.

Shinn had found Mayu's phone and picked it up when he felt the massive wave of heat and air slam into him, tossing him down the rest of the hill. By some small miracle, the only injuries he sustained were some scrapes and bruises, and having the wind knocked out of him. He slowly got to his feet, still clutching Mayu's cell phone.

"Mom! Dad! Where are you? Mayu!" Shinn called out as he started to search for his family. "Mom! Dad! Ma–"

It didn't take him long to find them. The path they had been running across had collapsed. And lying there, among the rubble, was Mayu. She was lying on her back, maybe eight feet from him. Mayu looked like she could have been sleeping, if it wasn't for the fact that there were a number of cuts and bruises on her skin. Including a nasty cut on her forehead. Lying a few feet from Mayu was his mother, lying in a pool of her own blood and her body twisted at an unnatural angle. Then he noticed his father, crushed between a boulder and a fallen tree.

Shinn screamed to the heavens as he fell to his knees, his cry a mixture of pain and sorrow. Tears began to pour down his face. Why had they been killed? They weren't soldiers. They didn't deserve to be murdered like that! So then why? Why had this happened?

Suddenly, a pair of hands grabbed him. "Come on! There's nothing you can do for them." A voice said as the hands lifted Shinn to his feet.

The voice belonged to an Orb officer. But Shinn didn't care. Nothing mattered anymore. He just wanted to lay down and die alongside his family. Seeing the state he was in, the Orb officer shook him, trying to shake him out of his stupor.

"Your family would have wanted you to survive. Come on. The boat will be leaving soon." He said, half dragging Shinn to the boat.

As they left for the boat, neither of them noticed as Mayu's hand twitched.

"You stupid fuck!" Shinn and Mayu roared in unison, as the Eclipse and Destiny Impulse, both leaving clouds of afterimages in their wake, rapidly decended upon the Calamity. The Eclipse reached the Calamity first, delivering a ruthless punch to the blue machine's face and sending it falling backwards.

"Kira." Shinn seethed from the cockpit of the Eclipse Gundam. "Mayu and I will take care of this jackass."

Kira simply nodded and flew away, leaving the Calamity at the mercy of the Eclipse and Destiny Impulse.

All across Orb, the battles raged. The Buster, Cherudim, Seravee, Wing Zero and the Excalibur let loose a furious barrage on the advancing invaders, cutting down dozens of mobile suits and fighters. The 00-Raiser, Aile Strike, Chimera, Duel, Epyon and Justice tore apart Strike Daggers in the close-quarters of the city blocks, using superior abilities, skills, battle experience and technology to overwhelm the Daggers.

"Whoa!" Cagalli yelled within the cockpit of the Akatsuki Gundam, as the trio of Strike Daggers that had been charging at her suddenly dissolved into ZAKUs. "That was somewhat unexpected." The blonde sighed, even as she unleashed her DRAGOON units and opened fire, spearing the weapons and main cameras of the still approaching machines with beam blasts, completely disabling them.

Elsewhere, the Forbidden fired its rail guns at the Freedom, scoring a direct hit and the blue-winged mobile suit was sent tumbling through the air, directly into line of fire for the Raider's mouth-mounted cannon. As the Freedom righted itself, the Raider descended on it.

"Game over." Clotho smirked.

The Raider's cannon fired at the Freedom.

But the battle was far from over.

A red Gundam suddenly descended in front of the Freedom, blocking the blast with its shield, then returning fire with its beam rifle, the Raider barely dodging.

The battle between the mobile suits stopped as everyone stared at the newcomer, unsure of what to make of it. There was a unique, majestic presence to them, the same presence held by the Freedom.

Eyes stared at the crimson mobile suit that had saved the Freedom. Ir was reminiscent of the Aegis, but it had a cannon, like that of the Calamity, visible in the chest, its main body was less bulky and instead attached a large backpack that was currently horizontal with the body, making the red Gundam look, in essence, like the Aegis with a Guul attached to its back.

"Damn it! Who the hell are you?" Clotho shouted, transforming the Raider and charging the crimson machine.

"Wow...another one of these...funny looking mobile suits." Shani commented, before shifting the Forbidden to close-combat mode and following the Raider.

"How dare you interfere?" Maxwell roared, pushing the Deathscythe's thrusters well past their maximum limits, following the Raider and Forbidden, even as the Calamity aimed its cannons.

All four Earth Forces machines fired, and the Akatsuki, Blitz, Chimera, Destiny, Divinity, Eclipse, Freedom, Justice, Impulse, Infinite Justice and Twilight broke apart to dodge the attack.

"Kira, are you okay?" Athrun Zala's younger-self asked from the cockpit of the Justice Gundam, still worried about his friend.

"Athrun?" Kira's younger-self gasped as the Freedom ignited a beam saber. "What are you doing here? Has ZAFT decided to stick its nose into this battle!"

Suddenly, the Calamity fired into the group, this time much more precisely, the beams coming perilously close to the Freedom, Justice, Raider and Blitz.

"Orga!" Clotho shouted, clearly enraged.

"You're bugging me!" Orga shouted back, the Calamity once again leaping into the air and firing at the group. Specifically the Raider and Deathscythe.

Suddenly, he turned to the Forbidden and fired at it just as it separated from the Blitz. "The same goes for you, Shani!"

Shani deflected the beams with his shields, the beams flying between the pairs of the Freedom and Justice and the Akatsuki and Impulse.

"These guys don't give a damn about each other!" Athrun's younger-self exclaimed from the cockpit of the Justice, clearly stunned.

"This is no team." Nicol said from the cockpit of the Blitz. "What kind of idiot puts people like these in mobile suits of this caliber?"

"The answer to that should be obvious, Nicol." Athrun's older-self answered from the cockpit of the Infinite Justice. "The idiot known as Muruta Azrael, the leader of Blue Cosmos."

A few days later, Uzumi turned to his daughter for the last time and smiled. "I feel very fortunate to have been your father."

At that moment, the hull door leading into the Kusanagi was sealed shut, separating them, and the catwalk pulled away.

"Fly, Kisaka!" Uzumi called. "I'm counting on you!"

The Kusanagi's bridge crew performed the final systems check, as did those in the mass driver control room. Everything was ready to go.

"Departure of all personnel except those in Division C is confirmed."

"All systems are a go."

"Launch the Kusanagi." Uzumi ordered as he reached the control room.

"May the blessings of Haumea be with you," Uzumi said softly, watching the screens displaying the Kusanagi and the Destiny. "And may the Goddess watch over you."

The mass driver activated as the Kusanagi's engines ignited. The vessel started to slide across the driver ramp, slow at first, but steadily gaining speed as it went.

"What do we have here?" Orga questioned smugly as the four Extended pilots caught sight of the Kusanagi moving along the mass driver.

The Divinity let loose a massive barrage with all of its weapons, driving the Deathscythe back. The angelic machine spun around, aiming to intercept the Kusanagi. He reached out as the ship began to shoot past him, grabbing hold of its side, then turned around to face his companions.

The Calamity, the Deathscythe, the Forbidden and the Raider were all now chasing after the Freedom and Justice, but the high-speeds and distance made a hit virtually impossible. As the Freedom approached the Kusanagi and reached out, the Divinity's hand shot out, grabbing the Freedom's and pulling the white mobile suit in. Kira turned around to face Athrun, who was struggling to reach the ship. Kira extended the Freedom's hand to the Justice, the two barely managing to grab hold, and Kira pulled the Justice forward onto the Kusanagi.

"Hope!" Mayu called. The Destiny was still viciously engaging the Forbidden.

_'I can't die here!'_ Hope thought as she broke away from the Forbidden. "I can't die here!"

The Destiny's wings spread to their full breadth, and the pulses of wings of light it emitted were far larger than ever before.

Then, the Destiny surged forward at impossible speeds, blindingly bright afterimages trailing in its wake.

In what seemed only an instant, the Destiny was in front of the Kusanagi, and landed on it just ahead of the Divinity, its wings powering down.

Within the Destiny, Hope coughed blood, and a small trickle of blood ran down her face. But the amethyst-eyed woman ignored all this, taking a single quick glance at her friends' mobile suits.

With a slight nod between them, the pilots all readied their next action.

The Freedom's plasma beam cannons flipped out of the wings and mounted over the shoulders as its rail gun unfolded from the hips.

The Infinite Justice's Fatum-01 backpack rose up, putting the beam cannons into attack position over the shoulders, the original Justice mimicing the movement.

The Destiny's own rail guns unfolded from the hips, taking aim, as the machine aimed its hyper-impulse cannon.

The Divinity's plasma beam cannons flipped out of the wings and mounted over the shoulders as its rail guns unfolded from the hips, and its chest-mounted beam cannons took aim.

All at once, the five mobile suits let loose a massive barrage on the water, creating an enormous geyser in the path of their enemies, stopping them momentarily.

At that moment, the Kusanagi cleared the ramp, rocketing into the heavens.

Lord Uzumi and most of Orb's government were gathered, watching the Kusanagi fly into space with the Freedom, Justice, Divinity and Destiny.

"The seed has flown. We've succeeded," Uzumi said as his hand reached for a single, large red button on the console, his expression hardening. "We can't leave Orb, or this world, in the hands of those bastards."

His finger pushed the button.

The bombs that had been planted went off. A massive fireball consumed Morgenroete as explosions traveled along Orb's Mass Diver, destroying both and robbing the Alliance of its sole reasons for invading Orb. Aboard the Powell, Azrael watched in horror as everything they had worked for went up in flames. Those damn biological CPUs had completely failed him! He'd make sure the doctors held off giving them their medicine for half a day at least, as punishment for their failure. He slammed his fists into the armrests of his chair.

"Damn you Uzumi Nara Athha!" He screamed.

At that instant, under the angry command of Azrael, the Earth Forces fleet fired a massive barrage that finished off the five Eurasian vessels.

Aboard the Kusanagi, Cagalli's younger-self cried out for her father as the fireball consumed the entire mass driver facility.


	47. Return to Space

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 47**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

The Freedom, Destiny, Justice, Divinity, Infinite Justice, Impulse, Blitz and the Kusanagi's Astrays floated around the separated compartments of the Kusanagi, aiding in the vessel's assembly.

Celestial Being's countless mobile suits and Gundam had returned to the Excalibur and the dagger-shaped vessel was now preparing to take the Kusanagi, the original Archangel, and later, the Eternal into its hanger bays.

"This is just like the Archangel's bridge." Murrue said, in false surprise as she floated onto the Kusanagi's bridge.

"Can you bring up a map of this region of space?" Kisaka asked, looking to one of the stations. One difference between the bridges of the Archangel and Kusanagi was that the Kusanagi include a sub-bridge for the CIC.

"Sure." A familiar voice answered. Mu looked to see a woman whom he was familiar with.

"Chief Erica Simmons." Mu said with a grin. "It's good to see that you made it as well."

"Since we'll be using M1s and the other new suits in the unfamiliar environment of space, we're here to make sure they function smoothly." Erica said, as she typed on the keyboard in front of her, bringing up a map on a nearby screen. "This is our present location." She said, pointing to a flashing green dot. "As you know, all the PLANTs are located at L5 and the remains of Heliopolis and Artemis are at L3. For the time being, we should make our way towards the L4 area."

As they talked, Kira, Hope, Mayu and Cagalli stepped onto the bridge.

"What's at L4?" Murrue asked.

"There are some abandoned colonies located there." Nicol explained. "The Kusanagi and Archangel won't need supplies for some time, but we still have limits, especially concerning water. The colonies at L4 were damaged and abandoned shortly after the fighting began. While they are uninhabited, they'll be useful as a means of a water supply."

"This sounds awfully familiar." Mu muttered, remembering a similar dilemma the Archangel faced months ago concerning a low water supply.

"Don't worry." Kira said, trying to assure him. "This isn't like Junius Seven."

"There might actually be several fully functioning colonies at L4." Athrun said, getting everyone's attention. "Quite a while back, ZAFT investigated reports of a suspicious group roaming the area, but found nothing out of the ordinary. Also, while nobody actually lives there, there should be some colonies operational facilities. They'd be perfect for an out of the way hideout for the time being."

"That sounds like a great plan." Kira said. "The Mendel Colony would be a good place to hide out"

"Mendel? Wasn't that place the victim of two separate biohazard accidents?" Mayu asked. "Would it really be safe to go there?"

"The accident from seventeen years ago was a false alarm," Hope said. "A number of theories concerning who was involved have cropped up, but the most likely is that personnel from the GARM R&D facilities used it as a means of escaping Blue Cosmos."

"And the real biohazard accident that resulted in Mendel's abandonment was three years ago." Cagalli said, recalling her history lessons regarding L4. "It was then sterilized with x-rays. By now, it should be safe for occupancy. The other colonies aren't in nearly as good of condition, and where else can we go? Lunar territory is controlled by the Earth Forces, including L1, and both L2 and L3 are too far away for us to be able to act."

"Well, let's get to it." Captain Andrew Waltfeld said, picking up the phone on his chair's arm, switching on the Eternal's intercom while suppressing a smirk. "Uh, the ship is beginning its final preparations. Is that understood? The ship is in its final preparations. Get to work."f

The Captain's words left a number of crewmen utterly confused, at least until the others suddenly drew guns on them.

All across the ship, the Clyne Faction supporters amongst the ship's crew quickly gathered up those that weren't and kicked them out as others rushed to bring the Eternal's systems online.

Moments later, the door of the bridge opened.

"Sorry for the delay." The voice of Lacus Clyne said, as she floated onto the bridge and took the commander's chair.

"No worries." Andy said. "As long as you made it safely. So, should we make our exit?"

"Yes." Lacus said, her future-self had actually merged with her past-self only a few hours before, while also utilizing her more divine abilities to teleport the Chimera Gundam into the Eternal's hanger.

"Prepare to fire the main cannon! Target the main gate!" Lacus ordered. "Fire as soon as we take off!"

"Preparing main cannon, targeting main gate." The fire control officer announced. Andy looked back to Lacus and nodded slightly. Lacus nodded in return.

"Now Eternal, launch!" Lacus ordered.

The Eternal's engines lit up, propelling the ship steadily forward.

"Eternal, what are you doing?" The dockmaster demanded. "Cut your engines! Alert headquarters!"

The only response the dockmaster received was the angelic form of the Divinity Gundam suddenly appearing outside, its beam claws ignited, and before he could scream the angelic machine smashed its hand through the control room, obliterating it, even as the Eternal fired its main cannon, destroying the gate blocking the exit and speeding out of the hanger.

The Divinity Gundam was quck to catch up to the fleeing Eternal and enter the rear hatch. As the Divinity was secured, the Eternal's pilot punched the engines up to maximum thrust, the pink warship blazing across the stars at speeds no other ship had ever achieved.

But even with that speed, there was one last obstacle to the Clyne Faction's escape from the PLANTs: the space fortress Jachin Due and its defense forces.

"Commander, orders from HQ." The communications officer suddenly said. "The Eternal has been stolen from Aprilius One. The Chairman is ordering that all available ZAFT forces intercept and destroy the Eternal."

Athrun Zala nodded as he stood on the bridge of a Nazca-class destroyer. "Very well." He said. "Bring all ships up to Level One Battlestations! Get the GuAIZs ready for launch! Bring our ships into position to flank as the Jachin defense forces move in to intercept!"

"Commander, the Eternal is sending out a message to all ZAFT forces." The communications officer said.

"Oh? Let's hear it." Athrun said.

"My name is Lacus Clyne." The voice of the PLANT Songstress spoke. "Although I am an enemy of Chairman Zala because we imagine different futures for our people, I have no desire at all to fight against you. Please, let our ship go in peace. And I beseech you all once again to think carefully about what we should really be fighting against."

The Jachin defense forces hesitated a moment, but their ultimate response was an attack. The Eternal suddenly let loose with dozens upon dozens of missiles that intercepted everything the defense forces had fired.

"You're orders, sir?" A bridge officer asked.

This was wrong. Just as Athrun had long-feared, the ZAFT he'd once known, the ZAFT he'd joined and fought for, was slipping away more and more with each passing day.

It had to stop.

"Do as you please." Athrun said. "I'm launching. I will not follow my father's orders any longer. But I will not force the rest of you into betraying ZAFT. All I ask is that you give me a head start."

No one on the bridge moved for a moment. Then, Shiho Hahnenfuss stepped forward.

"No sir," she said. "I believe I speak for everyone here when I say...to hell with our orders."

"And to hell with Patrick Zala!" Dearka Elsman added.

Silence filled the bridge for a moment, a small smile gracing Athrun's features.

"Thank you." He said.

"What are you waiting for then?" Shiho demanded, both of the commander and of the rest of the team. Athrun's smile dropped.

"Bring our ships closer to the Eternal! Scramble all mobile suits!" Athrun ordered. "We're protecting the Eternal. I don't want a single mobile suit to get within striking distance of that ship! And do not fire until I give the signal! Is that clear?"

"Yes sir!" Came the chorus of replies as the bridge crew rushed to carry out his orders.

"Will you still be going out as well, sir?" Captain Lee asked.

"Of course." Athrun replied. "You have the bridge, Lee."

Within moments, all the mobile suits of the Zala Team were launched. The Justice Gundam in the lead, followed closely by the Savior Gundam, the Buster Gundam, the Duel Gundam, the Eclipse Gundam and the Twilight Gundam. All six mobile suits heading for the Eternal. The regular ZAFT forces heading for the red warship let out a cheer.

"Those traitors are done for now!" One GINN pilot shouted.

"Yeah! No way can they escape the Zala Team!" Another said.

"Damn, Athrun's people are here." Andy growled on the bridge of the Eternal. "This won't be easy."

"Sir, we're being hailed by the Zala Team." DaCosta said.

"Put it through." Andy ordered. "I'm sure Athrun will listen."

The cockpit of Athrun's Justice Gundam appeared on the main screen.

"Eternal, this is Commander Athrun Zala," he said. "We have been ordered to destroy you. However, we can no longer follow my father's orders. The entirety of the Zala Team is at your disposal, Miss Clyne."

"Good to hear that Athrun." Andy smiled.

"Andrew? You didn't tell me you were the captain of that ship." Athrun said, surprised. Andy chuckled.

"What? You damn traitors!" The commander of the mobile suit force shouted. Dozens of GINNs advanced angrily, but suddenly, several of them were attacked and disabled from the rear. "What the?"

"We're with you all the way Miss Clyne!" A GINN pilot shouted, one of several turncoats that had disabled their fellows in a surprise attack.

"While I'm sure everyone appreciates any assistance we can get, you should move in with our forces so you don't get slaughtered." Athrun said. The five mobile suits in question did so, moving forward and taking up defensive positions around the Eternal with the forces of the Zala Team. With those orders, the Eclipse and Twilight both igniting their Wings of Light and began speeding around the battlefield, expertly severing the heads of dozens of GINNs and GuAIZs. The afterimages left in the wake of the two Gundams helping to confuse the approaching ZAFT reinforcements.

Meanwhile, Jachin Due launched over a hundred more mobile suits.

"Damn you, Patrick Zala, for forcing us to do this." Shiho growled within the Savior Gundam. "All forces, engage the ZAFT forces. Try to avoid the cockpit if you can. But do not let them near the Eternal!"

The Zala Team snapped into action, attacking the ZAFT forces like men and women possessed. The Vesalius and its sister ships fired their cannons as did the Eternal. Many GINNs lost heads and limbs to the six Gundams of the Zala Team. Sadly, many more were destroyed. But even then, there were too many mobile suits for the Zala Team and other turncoats to hold back. GINNs armed with missile launchers flew past the GuAIZs, heading for the Eternal.

"Stop them!" Athurn shouted as he blew a GINN's head off.

But it was too late. A barrage of missiles was fired, all of them heading for the Eternal. The Eternal fired its anti-missile countermeasures, but there were too many for them to stop, and a number of the missiles continued for the vessel.

At that instant, a series of perfectly aimed beam blasts tore through space, obliterating all of the missiles in an instant as an angelic white mobile suit appeared from nowhere, moving in front of the Eternal.

Where the Jachin defense forces had even stood against the Zala Team despite their fear, they suddenly found themselves backing away from this new arrival in terror. The Divinity was projecting an aura of power and divine fury that blanketed the entire battlefield.

Without pause, Kira brought the Divinity's plasma cannons and rail guns to bear, and opened up repeatedly on the entire ZAFT force that had dared try to hurt Lacus.

In the blink of an eye, the battle was over, and more than a hundred GINNs had been reduced to nothing more than useless torsos. None of the pilots were harmed, but every GINN had been stripped of weapons, limbs and head, the ZAFT forces utterly pulverized by the power of the Divinity.

Not only that, but the ZAFT forces had been crippled without any of the Eternal's protectors being hurt by the assault, despite several locking swords with their foes at the time.

"To think that she managed to escape with something like this ship and three Nazca-class ships. She's really something." Cagalli commented, staring at the Eternal with Athrun and Meyrin, as the three stood in the Excalibur's massive hanger bay as it floated near the Mendel Colony, the dagger-shaped vessel hiding under the veil of its Mirage Colloid.

"Yeah." He said as the three glanced at Kira and Lacus together on another catwalk.

"You don't mind, do you?" Meyrin asked. "She is your fiancée, right?"

"Ex-fiancée at this point in the timeline." Athrun replied, smiling slightly. "I should've realized even before this war started just how those two would be if they ever met."

Cagalli shrugged. "Well, better to realize that now than never." She said, a smile forming on her lips. "And I think Kira is just as much a fool. I guess even Coordinators can do stupid things. So we might as well get used to it."

"You think so?" Athrun asked. "I guess you're right."

The three glanced up again at Kira and Lacus.

"My father...he's dead Kira." Lacus said to Kira, finally releasing tears and sorrow she had held in since she learned of her father's death.

"Lacus." Kira said softly.

She hugged Kira and cried into her chest. Kira simply hugged her back. This war had claimed many loved ones already. Flay's father. Those people on the shuttle. Waltfeld's lover. Cagalli's father. And now Lacus's father. It had to stop before more loved ones were killed. They had to stop it.

Meanwhile, a black Archangel-class battleship floated above the Earth Alliance Ptolemaeus Crater Base.

"Sensors are detecting something." Said the sensor operator, Chief Petty Officer Oran Pressly. "Large heat source approaching, distance 500, Orange 14 Mark 233 Alpha. Looks like a warship class."

"Stand by for anti-ship and anti-mobile suit combat!" The Dominion's Captain ordered. "Ten to starboard, lower bow pitch angle fifteen! Activate Igelstellungs! Target enemy warship with the Valiants! Load launch tubes one to four with Korinthos missiles! Valiants! Fire!"

The bridge crew rushed to fulfill their tasks, fingers flying over the controls. But though experienced, they were all green with the systems of this new ship and weren't fast enough to finish in time, facing difficultly with the differences between the Dominion and every other ship in the fleet. The simulation ended with the Dominion's destruction.

Natarle Badgiruel sighed. That was the third simulation in a row they had failed, and she was beginning to become annoyed.

"What the hell are you guys doing?" She asked. "I know you're all capable of doing better than this. Are the systems really that different?"

"Sorry ma'am." Said the pilot, Ensign Jeff Moreau. Natarle sighed. Even the children from Heliopolis were better than this. She had a strong suspicion as to why her crew was having so much trouble.

"You need to remember that this ship works differently from other ships in the fleet." Natarle said. "You can't be trying to operate it like it uses the same control systems."

"Yes captain." Moreau said. "We'll try to remember that."

"Well, you've been getting better." Natarle admitted. "Reset the systems. We'll run another simulation." Natarle paused for a moment. She was about the order a simulation recreating the Archangel's battle with the Zala Team when the communications officer, Petty Officer Grissom, interrupted her.

"Captain, we have an incoming message from the fleet headquarters," he said. "Hold position for incoming shuttle and mobile suits."

Natarle glanced out the window. A group of mobile suits led by a shuttle, was approaching the ship. Most of the mobile suits were Strike Daggers, but there were four that clearly weren't. Those four reminded Natarle of the G-Weapons from Heliopolis and she assumed they were the next generation of those mobile suits.

"As some of you already know, this colony was abandoned before the war because of a biohazard incident a few years earlier." Hope Yamato explained to the gathered group of people from the original Archangel, the Eternal, the Kusanagi, the Zala Team, and Celestial Being, as they all stood in the Excalibur's massive main breifing room.

Mu La Flaga nodded. "Yeah, I remember that incident." He said. "It caused quite a stir."

"But because of that, it has received only minimal damage and pirates and the like have avoided it out of fear of being exposed to what caused the biohazard in the first place." Hope continued. "So this place is ideal for us to use as a base for now."

"Our immediate concern is most likely the moon." Lacus said. "I hear that now that they've recaptured Victoria, the Earth Forces have continuously been sending up troops."

"That can only mean one thing." Athrun said grimly. "They're planning an all out attack on the PLANTs."

"You think they'd actually do that?" Murrue asked.

"Of course." Andy replied. "Their forces are full of people who have always wanted to pull off that kind of stunt. For the preservation of our blue and pure world."

"That's enough." Mu said in an annoyed tone.

"Hey, they're the ones saying it, not me." Andy shrugged.

"I know." Mu said. "But you're right."

"I can't see how getting rid of all the Coordinators will lead to a pure world." Andy replied. "Hell, I don't even know what a pure world is."

"Then there's Patrick Zala and those that think like him in the PLANTs," Hope added. "They believe that because of the superior abilities of Coordinators, they are the new and superior race of humanity, and Naturals are nothing but vermin compared to them. As Lord Uzumi said, neither side will tolerate the other to exist. That's why Kira had me playing mercenary, allowing me to see things that would be carefully hidden from most. Mercenaries are...inconsequential, in the eyes of most."

"We live in such a cruel era." Murrue said.

Mu nodded. "Yeah," He replied.

"No. This isn't a cruel time for humanity. It's actually fairly normal," Athrun said. "Look at our past. Just about every war, every conflict, has, in the end, been like this. Two groups of people unable to tolerate each other for whatever reason and descending into violence. That's the flawed nature of humanity. People tend not to like people that aren't like them."

"While what you say is true, Murrue is still right." Shinn Asuka said, as he stood beside his wife, Lunamaria Hawke. "This is a cruel era we're living in. Orb, Alaska, Panama, Victoria, the Bloody Valentine...all of these things are proof enough that this has gone far beyond even the human norm."

"But it has always been we humans who do this and who stop this." Lacus said, as she placed a hand on Kira's shoulder. "Throughout history there have been many people who feel the way we do. Wouldn't it be great to create a world where fighting is not necessary?"

Kira smiled. "Yeah."

"That's an ambitious dream." Luna said.

"But it's one worth striving for, regardless." Shinn's sister, Mayu added.

"This is the Eternal's projected course, calculated from the data we received from Jachin Due." Rau explained to Ades and the gathered pilots as they stood on the bridge of the Nazca-class destroyer Deliverence.

"The L4 Colony Group." Ades said. "As expected. That place has always given us trouble. First it was dealing with those suspicious people hiding out there, and now this."

"I didn't think the Clyne Faction was that organized." Rau commented. "When did they get the urge to fight? And a number of our forces have defected to their side. We should expect anything."

"I've personally met both Captain Waltfeld and Commander Zala before." Ades said. "And I thought I knew them. But I never would have expected this from either of them."

"They're both charming and likeable men." Rau replied. "Captain Waltfeld's a war hero who miraculously made it back alive after an encounter with the legged ship and its mobile suits, and Athrun Zala is one of our best space pilots who led our forces in many critical battles. Who would have expected this from them?"

"Too bad we're involved now." Ades said with a sigh. "This will get messy."

"Yes, well, it can't be helped," Rau said. "Things seldom go as you plan. It's not an easy thing to try and understand, the thoughts hidden within one's heart." Rau turned his attention to one of the other pilots.

"Shiho." He said to the female ZAFT ace, whom was in reality an undercover agent for Celestial Being. "From now on, the other members of the Zala Team are your enemies. Can you shoot them down?"

"Yes sir." Shiho said, without hesitation. "I'm fully capable of shooting down any traitor to the PLANTs."

One week later, the Excalibur floated near the Mendel Colony, the dagger-shaped warship now flanked by ten other vessels; the original Archangel, the upgraded Bismarck, the Enterprise-E, the Eternal, the Executer, the Kusanagi, the Minerva, the Prometheus and the Ptolemaios. Suddenly, the ten ships dropped their Mirage Colloid, revealing the entire Celestial Being fleet to anyone nearby.

Celestial Being was arguably stronger than both the Earth Alliance or ZAFT.

The impromptu ten-vessel fleet was arguably stronger than any fighting force the Earth Forces or ZAFT could field at the moment. Each vessel, even the Eternal, though it faced weaknesses the others did not, was stronger than any of the vessels that comprised the fleets of the two sides, and each could field a very formidable mobile suit team, with a total array of nearly five million mobile suits at the fleet's disposal, including dozens of Gundams, all of which were either nuclear-powered or posessed GN Drives.

"Hope? Is something wrong?" Kira's older-self asked as the brunette in question entered the Excalibur's hangar a few hours later, massaging her temples.

"I'm not sure." She replied. "I've just got a really weird feeling...something's about to happen, something big."

Kira paused, frowning thoughtfully. "That sixth sense of yours acting up again?" He asked. Hope shook her head.

"No." She answered. "This is different. But whatever it is, I've got a really bad feeling about it."

Kira sighed slightly, he had been sensing something big coming as well, but he had shrugged it off as nothing more than interference from the dozens of merged timelines. "Hope, why don't you take Mayu and go to the Inner Sanctum?"

"What if we're attacked?" Hope asked, concerned.

"If we're attacked, the alarms will go off." Kira replied before kissing Hope on the lips. "So, go have some fun with Mayu before we come under attack."

"No, Kira." Hope replied, smiling. "You haven't had any time alone with Mayu yet, and you've been working too hard lately."

"Are you sure?" Kira asked.

"Yes, I'm sure, Kira." Hope nodded, and after a few seconds of silence, Kira walked out of the hanger.


	48. Bliss

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 48**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

**Author's note: **I'd like to thank fellow member/reader **KAZEONI** for his help with this chapter. **KAZEONI** rightfully deserves credit for assisting me with this chapter.

**Warning:** This chapter contains an extreme lemon, and is not suitable for anyone under the age of 18.

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Kira smiled as he led Mayu into the shower, the young woman's beautiful, ten-mile long hair elegantly trailing behind her.

Once the two were inside the shower, they quickly pulled Mayu's silky brunette tresses into the shower with them, Kira then shut the glass door behind himself before then hitting a button which turned all five of the shower heads on. Even with only the two of them inside the shower, there was no place that the shower heads missed. It was like being in the middle of a private tropical monsoon.

Kira smiled as he walked up to Mayu, now holding a large spray bottle, which was filled with a specially formulated foaming shampoo in his left hand, and a round hairbrush in his right hand.

"What's that?" Mayu asked, pointing to the bottle which her lover was holding.

"It's a special type of foaming shampoo." Kira answered, before gently grasping the young woman's shoulders and spinning her so that her back was facing him. The amethyst-eyed man smiled slightly as he began to lovingly brush Mayu's silky brunette tresses. After brushing the young woman's hair for nearly five minutes, Kira then held up the shampoo bottle and pulled the trigger, quickly coating Mayu's beautiful brunette tresses with a thick foam.

"Mmm, Hope was right." Mayu softly sighed, even as her body began to relax. "You are very affectionate."

Kira was about to reply to Mayu's compliment when the doors unexpectedly hissed open to reveal a pair of beautiful women; Asuka Langley Soryu and Misato Katsuragi.

"Who let you two in here?!" Kira scowled, lowering his hands from Mayu's soft tresses, causing the young woman to let out a slight whimper.

"Lexi let us in." Asuka quickly answered, causing Kira to sigh in annoyance as he slammed his palm on a button within the shower labeled with the name 'Lexi'.

In an instant, Lexi's holographic vestige materilized in the huge shower, standing directly in front of Mayu. And like Kira and Mayu, Lexi was completely naked, her waist-length hair, which was now brunette with blonde highlights, was drippping with water as her piercing blue eyes bored deeply into Kira's own amethyst eyes.

"Kira!" Mayu cried out at Lexi's sudden and unexpected appearance. The young woman had barely recovered from the shock of Lexi's surprise appearance when a pair of clear hoses, each with a clear breast cup on the end, suddenly descended from the ceiling of the shower stall. Without hesitation, Lexi grabbed the two cups, both which were now steadily sucking in the surrounding air and put them on Mayu's soft breasts. As her breasts were sucked into the cups, Mayu let a soft moan escape her lips, and after a few seconds, a steady stream of milk began to flow from her breasts.

While Mayu was distracted by the breast pumps and by Lexi, Kira moved out of the spray of the showerheads, before then reaching out with his left hand and grabbing the dial that dictated which of the many liquids were currently being expelled from the shower heads.

After a moment of thought, Kira turned the dial which controlled the liquids that were expelled from the shower heads. The flowing liquids quickly cycled through three of the ten selections, more specifically water, shampoo and bodywash, before finally stopping halfway between the bodywash and the foaming upholstery cleaner.

The showerheads instantly began spraying both liquids down on the two occoupants whom had remained in the shower. The bodywash merely soaked into Mayu's silky tresses while the upholstery cleaner quickly began to form a rich, thick foam that completely covered her hair, the rapidly thickening foam would not only clean her hair, but once rinsed out, it would also make the silken strands much softer than before.

Kira finally turned to glare at Misato and Asuka, and without so much as a single word, he teleported the two women into the brig, still lacking their clothing. At the exact same time, Lexi's holographic image had also vanished, her programming having been instantly rewritten so that, like Misato and Asuka, she wouldn't be able to leave the brig. Returning to the shower, Kira wrapped his arms around Mayu and gave her a deep kiss.

Mayu felt slight surprise, but it only lasted for a split second before she eagerly returned the kiss. They hugged each other tightly, the young woman's breasts flattening slightly as they embraced each other. They kissed long and deeply, their tongues entwining, tasting each other. The liquids from the shower flooded across their faces but they were too busy to care. After a few minutes of deep, passonite kissing, Kira gently pushed Mayu down to lay on the floor of the shower, then he climbed on top of the young woman.

Mayu's soft tresses created a thick cushion for the two lovers, even as her silken brunette strands continued to soak up the bodywash that rained down from the showerheads, while the thick foam of the upholstery cleaner slowly slid through her hair, thoroughly clensing every single strand and making her hair much softer than before. Mayu let out a pleased sigh, she knew that once the thick foam was rinsed from her hair, it would be even softer than it already was.

Suddenly, Mayu's hand slipped down Kira's hips and an instant later, he found himself nearly straddling the young woman as she took his engorged cock into her warm, wet, soft and vigorous mouth. Mayu's head moved up and down on Kira's cock of its own accord, but he helped it along anyway, his own hands pushing and lifting, pushing and lifting. Kira's body convulsed, bending over, pulling Mayu's head to him, keeping his cock shoved in her mouth. His hips were jerking, his spasms unloading his cream into her throat.

Finally, Kira was still. Gradually, the tension in his hips, legs and arms relaxed, releasing Mayu's head, her mouth slipping off his now sagging cock. It flopped down as soon as it passed her lips.

Mayu merely smiled as she rose back to her feet, gently pulling Kira with her before then reaching over to a small door on the wall of the shower and removing something from the small cubby; a round hairbrush. Mayu smiled sweetly as she handed Kira the hairbrush and turned her back to him, allowing him a full, unrestricted view of her silky, ten-mile long, brunette tresses.

Without so much as an instant of hesitation, Kira began to gently pull the brush through her hair. Mayu's hair was still damp and he had to pull hard to force the bristles through her thick brunette mane, but not so hard that it would hurt her. Kira worked diligently and actually lost himself in the task, pulling the hair away from her back with one hand, while gently tugging the brush through the young woman's silken tresses.

Kira was in heaven as he continued to carefully brush Mayu's beautiful brunette hair with long, swift strokes, making sure that he didn't accidentally tug any strands. Kira stroked Mayu's soft hair with his fingers, even as he went on brushing it heavily. Being cautious, Kira decided to pull Mayu's hair away from her back, his knuckles grazing her back as he gathered her hair and began to gently pull it out and away from her back. Mayu simply sighed in contentment as Kira continued.

Eventually, Kira was stroking the full length of her hair without hitting a single snag, but he also found it harder to hold her hair away from her back.

Unable to bear it anymore, Kira reached down, eased his cock out into the wet, flowing mass of hair. He then returned to the shampoo, letting the strands of hair curl around each one of his fingers, wrapping them in the wet slippery mass.

Looking down, he noticed how his cock was similarly wrapped into the strands of hair as, with the help of his hip movements, it rolled and flopped, washing her hair in the process, as he moved down the length of her tresses, increasing the speed at which his fingers and cock slipped through the slimy, wet, but so soft mass. Reaching the end, he then moved back up squeezing the hair to wipe away the excess suds, thrusting his hips as his cock pressed deeper and deeper into her brunette mass.

Pulling his hands free, Kira thrust once, then again and finally a third time before arching his back and coming. He watched as the head of his cock spurted and the cum arched much further than he had expected, splashing and nestling into the dense mass of hair.

Mayu hadn't noticed this however, since she was still quite distracted by the twin pumps which were still milking her breasts. Kira grinned as he suddenly tugged the cups off of Mayu's breasts, while at the same time, switching the dial which controlled the liquids that were expelled from the shower heads back to water.

Kira's amethyst eyes widened slightly as Mayu suddenly pushed him down to the floor and carefully mounted him, but he soon lost all control, thrusting his pelvis skyward, trying to almost go through his lover. He was crashing violently into her until their bones connected. With each thrust, he nearly lifted her off the bed. As gravity took over, she came plummeting back down only to be met half way be another bone crushing upward thrust. The thunderclap of their bodies connecting reverberated throughout the room and was only slightly over ridden by the sound of his lover's lustful cries.

Kira thrust his hips one last time and shot his load of sperm deep into the depths of Mayu's innards. Holding his hips skyward, he felt the last of his load erupt from his cock. If the young woman wasn't using any form of birth control, there was virtually no way that she could escape getting pregnant with that massive load. As he felt the last of his orgasm run its course, he heard her cry in ecstasy.

Kira suddenly felt Mayu's vaginal muscles clamp down on his cock like a vise and her body convulsed and twisted into an unnatural shape. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head and her toes curled with an orgasm that rocked her body like a massive tidal wave. Slowly her body spasms subsided and they both collapsed, completely exhausted.

Meanwhile, in the depths of the Excalibur's detention levels; Misato, Asuka and Lexi were still confined in the holding cell which Kira had placed them in earlier. Luckily, he had gone to the trouble of placing them in one of the empty cellblocks, sparing them the embarrassment of showing their bodies to any sex starved inmates.

Misato now sat on one of the two beds, resting her chin in her palms. She sighed as she looked over and saw Lexi sitting on her knees in the far corner unmoving, seemingly staring into space. Asuka on the other hand, was pacing back and fourth with her arms crossed, tapping a finger on her arm.

This went on for a few moments before Misato finally spoke up. "Real smooth, Asuka."

"Oh, so this is my fault!?" She yelled "Is that it!?"

Misato just sat there unfazed by the younger girl's outburst. "Technically, yes, it is your fault, Asuka. You let your curiosity get the better of you and cloud your judgment. Now I'm stuck in here with you as a victim of circumstance." Asuka was about to retort but stopped herself. Misato did have a point, as much as she hated to admit it.

**-FLASHBACK-**

Asuka was walking down one of the many winding halls of the Excalibur when she saw Kira walking by with Mayu in tow.

_'Where are they going?'_ Asuka thought to herself, even as she decided to quietly follow them. A few minutes later, the red-head peeked around a corner and watched as both her targets boarded the elevator. _'Damn it, where do they go? I know they're not heading to his room...so where are they going?'_ Asuka was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she didn't see Misato walk up behind her.

"Whatcha doin' Asuka?" Misato asked in a playful tone.

"Yaaaah!" The red-haired woman shouted in surprise. "Mien Gott! Misato, don't scare me like that." Asuka said while trying to slow her heart rate.

"Sorry about that. Anyway what are you doing here? I thought you were headed to the Mess hall." Misato said.

"I just saw Kira get onto the elevator with that Mayu girl." She explained.

"So?" Misato replied, not quite understanding where Asuka was heading with the current conversation. "Haven't you ever wondered where they go? I mean every now and then Kira or some of the big shot girls disappear and nobody can reach them."

"Not really." Misato answered, pausing for a few seconds before asking. "Where are you taking this?"

"I want to find out where they go and see what secrets their hiding." Before Misato could say anything else, Asuka grabbed her wrist and pulled her along. "And you're coming with me." Asuka said.

"Hey, hold on a second..." Misato protested as they got onto the elevator.

"Okay, there has to be a switch or button somewhere." Asuka said to herself, as she searched the control pad for anything that might give her a clue. A few moments later, Asuka found the hidden keypad which she had been looking for, and after more than a dozen failed attempts at finding the correct access code, she finally kicked the keypad in frustration. Suddenly the two Eva pilots felt the elevator begin to descend. "Huh. I must have hit the right buttons." Asuka said with a slight smirk on her face.

"I don't think this is a good idea, Asuka." Misato said as the elevator descended. "I mean who knows what kind of trouble we could get into."

"Oh shut up, how bad can it be?" Asuka replied. A few minutes later the elevator came to a halt, the LED readout displaying 'S-1'.

"Sub-deck one?" Misato mused just as the doors opened up. The two women were greeted with a long hallway lit with red lights with the large vault-like door of the Inner Sanctum at the end.

Asuka got off the elevator, followed quickly by Misato. "I feel like I'm in a German U-boat from the Second World War." Misato said.

Asuka turned around with an annoyed look on her face. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" She asked.

"I'm just saying the red lighting in here like that of a U-boat." Misato answered. Asuka just huffed as she continued to walk up to the imposing door in front of her.

"Inner...Sanctum? What the hell is that supposed to be." She thought out loud.

"Sounds like the name of some kind of night club." Misato mused as she walked over to the right side of the door, noticing the level of security locks. "Retina and handprint scanners. I don't think we are getting any farther then this, Asuka. There's no way we're getting through this door."

Just as Asuka was about to speak, the holographic form of Lexi; the Excalibur's A.I. appeared in front of the door, her arms crossed beneath her ample breasts. "What are you two doing down here?" She asked in an annoyed tone of voice.

"Let us in, robo-girl." Asuka demanded.

"Only Kira, Murrue, Cagalli, Lacus, Hope and Mayu have access to this section of the ship." Lexi said matter-of-factly. "You are not allowed past this point."

Asuka huffed as she crossed her arms. _'God I hate this thing.'_ She thought, before repeating her earlier demand. "Open the door right now."

"Asuka, let's just go." Misato said as she grabbed Asuka's arm. "Clearly we are not allowed here." Asuka merely shrugged Misato's hand away.

Lexi stood there unmoving until Asuka finally lost her temper. "Listen here, you binary bitch, you better open that fucking door right now or so help me, I will blow your main system core straight to hell!" After a few tense moments, Lexi's hologram vanished and the outer door to the Inner Sanctum opened. Asuka walked into the small changing room between the inner and main doors.

Just then Misato spoke up. "Asuka, let's just leave, alright." She said, trying one last time to defuse the situation.

"Would you stop that?" Asuka spat back. "Just come on!"

"If anything happens; it's on your head." Misato sighed in defeat and walked through the outer door.

After Misato had entered, the large vault-like door closed behind them. The two pilots were met with yet another door in front of them, this one lacking any form of control with which to open it. "Open the door, Lexi." Asuka said.

"I can not." Lexi's voice replied through the speakers.

"Didn't we just go through this?" Asuka asked in annoyance. "I'm warning you."

"Unfortunately, the inner door is outside my control." Lexi replied. "I have no way to open it without outside intervention."

"Okay then, how do we get the door to open?" Misato asked.

"Strip." Lexi said in her usual calm tone of voice.

"WHAT!?" Asuka shrieked.

"This is the Inner Sanctum; the command staff's private retreat aboard the ship, and all articles of clothing are strictly prohibited inside." Lexi explained.

_'I knew it! I knew they were all perverts!'_ Asuka thought, and after a few short seconnds she asked. "You don't have any cameras in here, do you?"

"Does it even matter, Asuka?" Misato said as she started to undress. Asuka sighed and quickly stripped herself, depositing her clothes in one of the open baskets. Once she and Misato had finished the inner door opened revealing the main deck of the Inner Sanctum.

"Wow, this place is really posh." Misato said in awe. "It's nice and warm in here too." She added. While Misato was busy admiring her surroundings, Asuka was busily looking for any clue to where Kira and Mayu had gone.

"Hey, Asuka, come check out all these drinks at this bar they have in the kitchen." Misato's voice called. Asuka quickly walked over to Misato, and saw that the purple-haired woman wasn't kidding, on a set of shelves that took up an entire wall and went from floor to ceiling, was a vast array of spirits most of which remained unopened. After exploring a bit more, Asuka was starting to get irritated at all the nice things she was seeing, and yet she didn't have access to any of it.

"Okay, this isn't fair." She said.

"What isn't, Asuka?" Misato asked.

"All of this." Asuka replied, gesturing to their surroundings. "I mean this has to be the most massive and advanced ship in the history of humankind and yet mister head honcho is hogging it all to himself!" She fumed.

"This coming from one of the most self-obsessed and egotistical humans in the world." Misato chimed in.

"Listen you..." Asuka was cut short when she heard the sound of running water. "Wait, do you hear that?" She asked as she looked at Misato.

"Yeah, I do." Misato answered.

The pair followed the noise until they heard a voice. "You are affectionate." Asuka stopped in front of what she guessed was the bathroom door and was about to hit the button to open it.

"Asuka, wait..." But before Misato could finish, the door hissed open to reveal Kira lathering Mayu's hair, the young woman's silken brunette tresses seemed to extend for miles, completely covering the floor.

"Who let you two in here!?" Kira scowled, lowering his hands from Mayu's soft tresses, causing the young woman to let out a slight whimper.

**-END FLASHBACK-**

After a few seconds of complete silence, Asuka walked over to Lexi, her blue eyes glaring down at the holographic form of the other woman as she continued to sit on her knees, seemingly staring into space.

"You knew this would happen, didn't you?" Asuka growled, but to her annoyance, Lexi didn't move, she actually seemed to be ignoring the red-haired girl. "Answer me!" Asuka yelled as she lashed out with in open palm. An instant later, much to everyone's surprise, Asuka's slap connected with Lexi's cheek, the blow sending the other woman sprawling to the floor.

Lexi lay on the floor for a few seconds, clearly stunned, before she finally got off the floor and rose to her feet. "Yes, I will admit it, I had suspected that the outcome of your actions might result in this situation." She finally answered. "However, aren't you two even the least bit curious about what you saw in the Inner Sanctum?" Lexi paused, a slight smile forming on her lips as she continued. "Aren't you curious as to how Mayu's hair can go from being only ankle-length to extending for ten miles?"

"Now that you mention it; yeah, what was that about?" Misato asked.

Lexi then decided to explain to Misato and Asuka that neither Kira, Mayu nor any of the other main command girls were normal humans, but she decided to be careful with what she was going to say. "Before I say anything I need to tell you that you are not to tell anyone and I mean ANYONE else about this. If you do the consequences might make this seem like a day at the spa." She warned.

Misato was about to back out when Asuka spoke up "Oh, what the hell, we're already here might as well get the whole story." She said as she sat down.

"Asuka! I am NOT going to pay for your overactive curiosity!" Misato said.

"Don't worry, you wont." Lexi assured.

Misato took one last look at Asuka and sighed in defeat. "Alright, let's hear it." She said and tried to make herself as comfortable as she could, sitting on what could be passed off as a bed in the cell. "Well, as I already said Kira and the girls are not what you would consider normal humans, in truth they are something far greater." Lexi started.

"We already read the reports in the database, most of them are some kind of genetically modified humans called 'Coordinators' I think is what it said." Asuka said, fully expecting to be right.

"That's only partly true. Yes, most of them used to be coordinators, but not anymore. Oh no, they have transcended far beyond that." Lexi said.

"Okay, but how was it that Mayu's hair got so long seemingly out of nowhere." Misato inquired.

"She can control it." Lexi explained.

"Wait, wait, hold on, are you saying that she can control the length of her hair at will?" Asuka asked.

"Yes, but it's not just her; all the girls can do it, they can even move their hair as if it were a limb." Lexi explained.

"How the fuck...?" Asuka started clearly confused.

"Here, let me explain, but it will take time." Lexi said.

"Not like we're going anywhere." Misato said.

Lexi went on to explain some of the traits shared by Kira and his many lovers, but she was careful to mask certain things; like not fully explaining the full degree of their regenerative abilities, or telling that they were immortal, since doing so would have not only put her in hot water, but it would have simply been to much for the two ex-Nerv personal to absorb in one sitting.

After a few minutes of absorbing what Lexi had just told them, Asuka finally broke the silence. "It almost sounds like Kira has a fetish for long hair. I don't know what I see in him." She said as she sat down, before quickly covering her mouth.

Both Lexi and Misato looked at the clearly embarrassed girl.

"Asuka..." Misato started. "Do you have a crush on Kira?"

"N-no, of course I don't." Asuka stuttered.

"AH-HAH! I knew it! You do have a crush on Kira!" Misato exclaimed with a smirk on her face.

"W-well, can you really blame me? I mean come on did you see his abs?" She asked, still red-faced.

"Actually, I was trying to see what was a little lower." Misato grinned.

"Wait, so you like him too!?" Asuka asked.

"Duh." Misato answered.

"I'm not to sure about it now though." Asuka said.

"Oh come on, Asuka, so he likes long hair big whoop. I mean look at you, your hair goes down to the small of your back. So I don't think he'll mind." Misato reassured.

"I don't think so either." Came a new voice, and Asuka instinctively crossed her arms and legs trying to cover her breasts and womanhood. Misato did the same, only not quite as fast as Asuka, while Lexi didn't even bother to cover herself.

"Hello, ladies." Kira said as he appeared on the other side of the cell bars. Asuka actually squeaked in surprise when she saw that Kira was not only still completely bare but also still erect for all to see.

Kira paid no attention to Asuka's reddening face. After a moment he sighed and looked at Lexi with his arms crossed. "Lexi, I'm not happy with you right now." He said as he looked at the woman sternly.

"I apologize Kira. I..."

"You interrupted Mayu's time with me and she isn't happy about that at all." Kira said cutting her off.

"I'm sorry, Kira. Asuka was insistent on entering the Inner Sanctum." Lexi explained.

"And you let her in anyway just because she asked?" Kira asked, becoming slightly annoyed.

"She threatened to blow up my main system core. At that point my self-preservation programming kicked in." Lexi explained.

Kira only sighed in annoyance and looked at Asuka. "So, you're the one who's at fault?"

Asuka didn't respond, instead Misato did. "Yes, she is and she dragged me along with her."

Just then Mayu walked in, her nude body wrapped in a large bed sheet. Even though she and Kira had teleported to the brig from the Inner Sanctum, she still wanted to make sure she wouldn't get cold.

"Okay, who's the wise girl?" She asked. Kira simply pointed to Asuka, who was still trying not to gaze directly at Kira. Without another word, Kira looked at Mayu. After a moment Kira smirked and Mayu nodded.

The three captive women were suddenly blinded by a bright flash of light, and when it finally faded, they found themselves in a dimly lit room. Metal chains could be heard clinking together lightly. Misato could see a number of shackles hanging from the ceiling, she also saw something else that resembled a large dentist's chair in the corner, but what really frightened her was a large rotary table saw in the opposite corner.

"W-where are we? The tower of London or the set of one of those 'Saw' films?" Asuka asked. The only answer that Asuka received was a terrified scream from Lexi, as she suddenly seemed to vanish into the darkness.

Both Asuka and Misato looked around, but the dim lighting of the room made it difficult to see anything beyond a few feet around them.

Lexi suddenly felt herself being pulled backwards, before quickly being lifted up and laid down on cold metal surface. She felt her legs spread open and metal shackles clamping around her ankles, with her wrists being similarly bound an instant later. She was now unable to move and could tell that her body was now displayed in an 'X' fashion. Misato and Asuka could hear Lexi's struggling from where they still stood.

"This isn't funny, Kira!" Asuka said, just before she felt something wrap around her left ankle and then her right. "What the?" She gasped, as she looked down and saw what appeared to be a mass of hair wrapped around her ankles, the soft tresses slithering around her ankles like tentacles, even as another mass of hair quickly snaked its way around her right wrist. Asuka started to struggle, even as a third mass of silken tresses seized her left wrist before finally wrapping around her waist, while a final mass of hair wrapped itself around her head and gagged her mouth. Asuka gave a muffled scream before slipping and being dragged by her feet into the darkness.

Lexi, meanwhile, had decided to simply relax as much as possible and to take whatever punishment Kira and Mayu had decided upon for Asuka, Misato and herself. Lexi knew all too well that she wouldn't be able to stop any of the punishments that Kira and Mayu had in store.

After a long moment, Lexi noticed something slowly descending towards her from the ceiling. She narrowed her eyes slightly as the object continued to descend towards her, and her eyes widened when she realized that the object was actually a bra. Lexi suspected that it wasn't a normal bra, but a milking bra, and her suspicions were confirmed a few seconds later, as the garment settled into place over her breasts.

The bra itself was made of the softest silk and was pure white in color, and at the peak of each of the twin breast cups was a clear, thin hose that extended towards, and eventually vnished into, the ceiling. Lexi jumped slightly as Kira walked up beside her, and without a single word, he fastened the straps of the bra around her back, securing it into place. A soft gasp escaped Lexi's lips an instant later, as a steady, yet gentle suction began to tug on her breasts and nipples. But much to Kira's annoyance, nothing could be seen in the thin, clear hose.

_'Hmm, that's strange, why isn't it working?'_ Kira thought. "Oh, I remember now." He said as he reached down and placed his right index and middle fingers on Lexi's forehead. "Lexi input: physical chest setting, Mode L." He said.

"M-Mode L activated." Lexi said, while trying to suppress a moan. Kira smiled as he began to see a white liquid slowly move through the thin tubes from Lexi's breasts. "Good girl, now sit tight, I'll be right back." With that, Kira walked away and disappeared into the darkness.

Misato was still standing in the same spot since she and the other girls had first appeared in the dungeon. "Hello again, Miss Katsuragi." Kira said as he seemingly appeared out of nowhere.

"Kira, what's going on!?" Misato asked, a mix of fear and slight anger in her voice.

"Relax, Misato, I'm not going to hurt you." Kira explained, even as he ran the tips of his fingers over her outer thighs. The contact sent chills up Misato's spine.

"But...what about the others?" She asked, doing her best to keep herself from moaning.

"They are in trouble and are being treated accordingly." Kira explained, grinning as he continued moving his hands over her smooth skin. "You on the other hand, are merely a victim of circumstance and thus are not at fault."

"S-so then...Mmm!...What are you going to do to me?" She asked. Kira just pulled her into a kiss and held it for a few seconds. Misato made no attempts to push him away.

"I'm going to give you pleasure." He whispered seductively in her ear, before then guiding her over to the all to familiar dentist-like chair that was in the corner of the room. Kira sat Misato in the chair and proceeded to pull what looked like a pair of normal black panties out of a drawer next to the chair. He then began to slide the garment up Misato's long shapely legs. Misato gasped as she felt something slip into her womanhood once the panties had reached her waist.

"Are you hungry by chance, Misato?" Kira asked.

"A little bit." She answered, and Kira smiled as he reached up and pulled down a device attached to a thin clear hose.

"Open your mouth please." Kira asked. Misato did so and Kira placed the mouthpiece into Misato's mouth before then strapping it in place. "Don't worry, it's just a milk feeding tube, so it will keep you nourished. Just suck and the device will do the rest."

Misato could see the white color of the milk flowing through the hose along the ceiling before moving her way. She gave a light suck on the mouthpiece to sample her offering and was pleased with the taste.

Kira then reached down again and connected another hose to Misato, although this hose was attached to the panties she was still wearing. He then handed a remote to Misato and pressed the 'ON' button. Misato's body jerked as she felt suction in-between her legs as well as vibrations from the dildo within her.

"That remote controls the power of the suction as well as the speed of the vibrator." Kira explained as he turned to go back to Lexi. "Enjoy."

Meanwhile, over on the other end of the massive sexual dungeon, Asuka was still clawing desprately at the steel floor in an attempt to stop herself from being dragged further into the darkenss, but it was a futile effort, since the thick masses of hair were wrapped tightly around her ankles, wrists, waist and mouth, some of the hair had even forced its way into her mouth, as to stifle her screams.

Suddenly, Asuka felt herself being lifted into the air, before then being suspended high above the floor. She looked over to her left and saw Mayu walk out of a darkened section of the room, looking up at her. As she looked down at her captor, the red-haired woman saw that the arms of hair were, in fact, Mayu's own tresses.

"I'm not happy with you, Asuka." Mayu said as she looked up at young German girl, and after freeing and unwrapping her hair from in and around Asuka's mouth. Mayu spoke again. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

"Fuck you." Asuka huffed.

"Oh my, such vulgar language." Mayu gasped, pretending to be surprised. "We'll be having none of that now."

_'You sadistic bitch!'_ Asuka thought as she tried to free one of her wrists.

"I'll have you know, Asuka, that I'm one of the more mellow girls when it comes to that." Mayu said after reading Asuka's thoughts. "For instance, bondage of this level isn't really my thing, but in this case; I'll make an exception." She smiled as she grabbed Asuka's left breast and squeezed roughly, although not enough to cause permanent injury.

_'Mayu, I thought you'd like to know that I have Lexi hooked up to the large milking system, if you want to you can use it.'_ Kira's voice said, speaking telepathically to Mayu.

_'Thanks, Kira, but I think I have a better idea for it.'_ She answered.

_'Careful now, Mayu. If you go too far, Cagalli will be lusting after you even more then she already is.'_ Kira warned.

_'Thanks for the warning.'_ Mayu replied, before they finally broke the telepathic link. The brown-haired girl smirked as she carried her tangled captive over to a small metal table, and before Asuka could react, she felt herself slam into the cold metal surface.

The table was just large enough to support Asuka's head and abdomen while her arms and legs hung off the sides. Asuka quickly realized that she was lying on her chest, but she also noticed that her breasts were not being crushed under her weight. Instead, her breasts felt as if they were in a pair of cups of some sort. Asuka looked down and watched as Mayu's hair tied itself through a set of metal hoops at the base of the device, the silken tresses then seemed to detach from their source, while still remaining tied tightly around her wrists, ankles and mouth.

"That's a new trick I've learned." Mayu said as she walked in front of Asuka, whom was now at eye level with Mayu's shaven womanhood. "I can detach small amounts of my hair but still have complete control over it." She explained as she knelt down, now holding another mouthpiece from the ceiling.

Mayu demonstrated her control over her hair again by prying Asuka's mouth open and shoving the mouthpiece into the red-haired woman's gaping maw, before once more tightening the grip of her silken brunette tresses.

"Don't worry, it's only breast milk." Mayu reassured as Asuka felt the white liquid flow into her mouth. Asuka was forced to swallow the breast milk as it continued to fill her mouth, and as it did, Mayu stood back up and walked behind her.

"My you have quite a nice ass." Mayu commented as she ran the tip of her left index finger over Asuka's smooth flesh. "It's very soft." She said as she continued to slowly run her finger tips along Asuka's left butt cheek. Asuka squirmed as much as she possibly could, trying to get Mayu's fingers away from her bare bottom.

Unbeknownst to the redhead, Mayu was currently twisting and weaving her hair, making it resemble a bullwhip. "This might be stereotyping, but I hear that Germans like bondage, so you might find this to be fun." Mayu whispered. Asuka suddenly let out a muffled scream as Mayu snapped her hair-made whip on Asuka's left butt cheek, leaving a small red mark here the whip had impacted. "Well, do you like this, Asuka?" Mayu asked as she struck again. "Do you!?" She asked, even as she repeatedly struck Asuka's behind with more force. Small tears began to fall from Asuka's eyes as Mayu continued her assault for another half hour.


	49. Temporal Seperation

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 49**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

The Divinity Gundam glared at the approaching vessel. It was one which Kira had seen years earlier and had come to know as a Borg Cube.

Kira sighed as the communications lines were forced open on all frequencies and on all channels, filling the air with billions of voices speaking as one. "We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistence is futile."

Meanwhile, Natarle sat in her command chair, completely focused on what was coming. She glanced out the bridge windows at the Dominion's escorts. Not one, not two, but eight Agememnon-class warships, all filled to the brim with mobile suits. The nine ships flying through the blackness in a V formation.

"Are the suits you're after really strong enough to warrant this much force?" Natarle asked.

"From what has been observed, we'd need several fleets worth of Strike Daggers to defeat all four of them." Muruta Azrael replied. "No, the suits of those ships are to preoccupy their allies. They're not as strong, but they're still formidable. Sending ordinary mass-produced models after the machines I'm interested in is nothing more than sending those pilots to their deaths."

Natarle shook her head slightly. It wasn't even simply mass-produced models in those carriers. Aside from the next generation G-weapons, the Dominion only carried GAT-01 Strike Daggers. While those made up the bulk of the task force's mobile forces, Natarle knew that there were also more advanced models hidden in the hangars of those carriers.

"Nine warship silhouettes detected in the Mendel Colony harbor, ma'am." Pressly announed. "One of them is confirmed to be the Archangel."

"Wow." Azrael commented. "You wouldn't think they'd have gathered so many allies in such a short period of time. Perhaps we should've brought along additional ships ourselves. Still, we shouldn't press our luck. Let's go ahead and get the fun and games started." Natarle sighed slightly, but concealed it from Azrael.

"Prepare the ship for battle!" She ordered. "Activate the Igelstellungs and Valiants, load all missiles tubes with Sledgehammers." Her orders were swiftly carried out, the crew having spent much of their time practicing as they searched for the Archangel. Grissom alerted the escort carriers. "Aim Lohengrin. Target the first ship of the Archangel-class, the Archangel."

"Large heat sources approaching, ma'am!" Sai said from the Archangel's sensor station. "They all appear to be warship-classes. Distance 700, orange eleven, mark eighteen alpha. Eight Agamemnon-class carriers and one unknown."

"All hands to Level One Battlestations!" Murrue's younger-self ordered.

As the crews of the nine vessels in the harbor rushed to bring the ships up to Level One Battlestations, a sudden explosion shook the colony.

"Archangel, taking off." Murrue said. "We've got to get outside."

"Captain Ramius." Kisaka's voice spoke.

"What's the Kusanagi's status?" Murrue asked.

"We're ready to launch." Kisaka answered.

"We're still making a few final adjustments to the Eternal." Andy said.

"The Minerva is good to go." Talia Gladys replied from the bridge of the Minerva. "But both the Bismarck and the Ptolemaios are trapped by debris from the shot. They need some time before they can get out."

"Understood." Murrue said, as the Archangel began to move out of the harbor. "Activate the Igelstellungs and Valiants. Load all aft missile tubes."

"Hope, looks like you were right." Kira's older-self said, shutting his visor as the Divinity moved to the Excalibur's catapult, while the Akatsuki, Chimera, Destiny, Freedom and Destiny Impulse were brought online.

"Yeah, but I wish I wasn't." Hope replied as the catapult doors opened up across the mammoth ship.. "This attack came much sooner than we expected. And they're not holding back anything against us here, either."

"Everyone ready?" Kira asked.

"Yes sir!" The millions of pilots choursed in perfect unison.

"Jesus Yamato." The amethyst-eyed man called. "Divinity Gundam, god-complex returning."

"Cagalli Yula Athha, Akatsuki Gundam, heading out!"

"Hope Yamato, Destiny Gundam, I'm a pretty butterfly!"

"Lacus Clyne, Chimera Gundam, launching!"

"Mayu Asuka, Destiny Impulse Gundam, heading out!"

"Murrue Ramius, Strike Freedom Gundam, taking off!"

"Shiho Hahnenfuss, DEEP Arms Gundam, launching!"

"Kira Yamato, Freedom Gundam, let's do it!"

"Athrun Zala, Infinite Justice Gundam, taking off!"

"Dearka Elsman, Buster Gundam, launching!"

"Nicol Amalfi, Blitz Gundam, heading out!"

"Andrew Waltfeld, Gaia Gundam, launching!"

The Gundams launched, along with many, many more machines as the Excalibur shot out mobile suits like missiles.

Suddenly, a new voice came over the communications line.

"This is the Earth Alliance Forces mobile assault ship Dominion." The familiar voice said. "Archangel, do you read me?"

Those that had served with the Archangel before JOSH-A were all stunned.

"Your ship has been listed as a renegade vessel and we therefore demand your immediate and unconditional surrender." The voice of Natarle Badgiruel continued. "Should you fail to abide by these orders, we will have no choice but to destroy you."

"Captain, we have a visual image of the enemy task force." Mir said, putting the image on screen, and transmitting it to the other ships and all their mobile suits.

"The Archangel." Murrue's younger-self gasped at the sight of the darker-colored copy of her ship.

At that moment, the bridge of the Dominion was displayed to them, revealing the face of Natarle Badgiruel.

"It's been awhile, Captain Ramius." She said.

"Yes, it has." Murrue replied.

"I regret that we have to meet again under these circumstances." Natarle said.

"Same here." Murrue replied.

"I heard about what happened at Alaska." Natarle continued. "However, I strongly suggest that you surrender and talk things over with Military Command. I don't know what help I can be, but I'll do everything I can to assist you. I know you're well aware of what this ship is capable of doing. Please, let me help you."

"Go fuck yourself." The voice of Kira Yamato's future-self growled, forcing his communication line closed as the Excalibur and the Executer suddenly appeared directly behind the Dominion, the dagger-shaped vessel launching a large cube-shaped ship towards the second ship of the Archangel-class.

By this time, the other ships had exited the harbor and formed up around the Excalibur and the Executer, their shields effortlessly blocking any weapons that had been fired at them.

The Celestial Being fleet was nothing if not impressive, as it now consisted of eleven ships in total; the Excalibur, the original Archangel, the upgraded Bismarck, the Enterprise-E, the Eternal, the Executer, the Kusanagi, the Minerva, the Prometheus, the Ptolemaios and a Borg Cube.

"Natarle, thank you, but we cannot do that." Murrue's younger-self said, both of them clearly ignoring Kira's outburst. "This isn't only about what happened at Alaska, or even what happened to Orb. We have serious doubts about the Earth Alliance as a whole. Therefore, there will be no surrender and no return to the military!"

"Oh, this is so amusing." Came another voice, accompanied by the clapping of hands. The smug arrogance in it made even Kira and Lacus feel inclined to at least inflict horrible bodily injury on the owner. "You should be embarrassed, Miss Captain. If we could solve everything by talking, there would be no conflict in this world. Enemies are made through misunderstandings. Once that happens, all that can be done is to shoot them before they shoot you."

"Director Azrael!" Natarle said, her tone one of protest. The Dominion bridge crew had to restrain the urge to attack the man.

Everyone aboard ten of the eleven ships fell silent for a moment.

"Calamity, Deathscythe, Forbidden and Raider! Launch!" Azrael's voice spoke again. "Today, we destroy the indestructible Archangel!"

"Isn't Azrael...?" Miriallia began.

"The leader of Blue Cosmos?" Neumann finished.

"Yes." Murrue's younger-self replied, her eyes narrowing in anger.

Murrue's older-self simply smirked as she sat on the Excalibur's bridge. After a moment, she focued her thoughts on the Borg Cube, ordering it to transmit its standard hail, and if the Dominion didn't stand down, to open fire.

On the Dominion, the communications lines were suddenly forced open on all frequencies and on all channels, filling the air with billions of voices speaking as one. "We are the Borg. Lower your defenses and surrender your ships. Your life as you know it is over, from this moment forward you will service us. Resistence is futile."

"We surrender to no one!" Muruta yelled. "Open fire! Destroy those ships!"

"Crew of the Earth Alliance Forces Mobile Assault Ship Dominion, registery number LCAM-02XA, this is your final warning, surrender immediately." The Borg repeated, even as the Dominion's beam cannons and linear cannons opened fire, the weapons impacting harmlessly against the hull of the cube.

"You might want to listen to them, Natarle." Murrue recommneded. "The Borg could probably beat the combined forces of both the Earth Alliance and ZAFT with only a few ships." Despite the warning, the second ship of the Archangel-class continued to fire, now spliting its attacks between the cube and the Archangel.

Even as the Dominion continued its relentless weapons fire, a cloud of mobile suits suddenly appeared between the darker-colored Archangel-class and the Celestial Being fleet.

"Natarle!" Kira's older-self roared, the Divinity transfoming into its flight mode and screaming forward.

"Shoot that machine down!" Azreal screamed, as the Divinity Gundam, it's wings brightly glowing, effortlessly weaved its way through the Dominion's anti-aircraft fire.

"Borg Cube." Kira smirked as he slowly moved the Divinity away from the Dominion, even as rounds pinged harmlessly off his armor. "Your crew is now free to board and assimilate the Dominion and its escorts, however, do not assimilate Natarle Badgiruel." After thinking for a moment, Kira added. "Assimilate Muruta Azrael last, I want to watch as he cowers in fear."

"I won't run from you, space monster!" Azreal roared. He was forced to take those words back an instant later, as five Borg Drones materalized on the Dominion's bridge. In an instant, all of the bridge officers had their sidearms drawn and were firing at the strange, cybernetic invaders, but to their horror, only two of the strange creatures fell to the deck as the other three continued to advance, unconcerned with their fallen comrades. As the drones began to assimilate the helpless crew of the Dominion, Natarle Badgiruel seemed to dissolve into thin air as she was teleported from the Dominion's bridge and into a holding cell onboard the Excalibur.

"Supreme Commander Yamato." One of the Borg representatives, a female whom had formerly been human, spoke through the communications line. "What are your orders regarding the Earth Alliance ships and their mobile suits?"

"You can have the Strike Daggers and the Agememnon-class ships." The amethyst-eyed man answered. "But leave the Dominion and the Gundams alone, I will send a team to retrive them once everything has been secured."

"We've found Gundams on some of the Agememnon-class ships." The Borg representative said after a few moments.

"Capture one of the Earth Alliance pilots and have them move the Gundams to the Dominion." Kira sighed.

"Understood." The representative replied.

Kira glanced at the rearmost Agememnon-class ship to the left of the Dominion, as it suddenly ignited its engines and pulled out of formation, firing a brightly glowing white flare as it did so.

"So, now they want to surrender?" Kira asked rhetorically, even as transparent blue tractor beams lashed out from the Excalibur, the tractor beams trapping the Agememnon-class ships as well as the Dominion itself, in their grip and dragging them towards the Excalibur's hanger bay.

"Hello, Natarle Badgiruel." Kira said as he glared at the captured captain of the Dominion.

"Kira Yamato." Natarle replied in shock.

"In my previous life, yes, I was known as Kira Yamato." The amethyst-eyed man replied. "However, I am now known by my more divine name: Kira Jesus Yamato."

"You certianly have become full of yourself." Natarle scowled.

"No, I only want to eliminate all conflict from the universe." Kira replied. "And in order to help me with that mission, I have obtained the powers of God."

"Eliminating all conflict is impossible, Kira." The raven-haired woman replied.

"I've already eradicated all conflict from four other worlds." Kira smirked. "And if I can't eradicate all conflict on Earth, I am fully capable of eliminating the planet and everything on it."

_'He's gone insane.'_ Natarle thought, as she stared at Kira in horrified shock.

"No, I don't suffer from insanity." Kira grinned. "I enjoy every minute of it."

"Kira." Lacus's voice suddenly spoke from the intercom.

"What is it, Lacus?" Kira replied.

"It's the Earth." The blue-eyed beauty answered. "We're detecting massive temporal flucations."

"Can you please be a little more specific?" Kira asked.

In response to Kira's question, an image of the Earth appeared on one of the monitors hanging from the ceiling, and his eyes widened at what he saw. The planet was haphazardly speckled with more than a dozen different colors, each of the colors representing either a different place in the current timeline, or a different timeline altogether.

"Wait a minute." Kira said, after a moment of stunned silence passed. "Lacus, why is the Orb Union not seperated into multiple timelines like every other part of the planet?"

"We're not sure." Lacus replied. "We are trying to figure that out right now."

"Either way, we'll probably be able to figure more out if we actually go down there and investigate." Kira replied, as he walked out of the holding cell, the force fields automatically lowering to let him out before then reactivating so that Natarle wouldn't be able to escape while he was gone.


	50. Unstoppable Fury

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 50**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

Cagalli Yula Athha, Hope Yamato, Kira Yamato, Lacus Clyne, Mayu Asuka and Murrue Ramius, all clad in their flight suits, slowly approached a large underground bunker located in Paris, France. Each of the six Gundam pilots carried a high-power flashlight, they also had a beam pistol in one of the two holsters that were built into their flight suit, in the other holster they carried a beam sub-machine gun and finally, on the forearms of their flight suits, was a miniturized beam shield generator.

After a moment of hesitation, Hope reached out and opened the thick steel door gaurding the entrance. As the group walked into the underground bunker, Kira flashed his flashlight to his right, the beam illuminating the old emblem that was still visible despite it's age.

An eagle. A swastika.

"Holy Jesus." Lacus breathed.

"Jesus doesn't know about this place." Mayu and Hope replied in unison.

"He does now." Kira said, smirking slightly.

Kira looked at the lid of the crate. Lacus slapped a bayonet into Kira's hand and he started prying on the lid. The lid gave with a screech, a sharp, brittle sound. The crate contained boxes, all marked with the same emblem that was on the map of the building.

"Open one." Murrue ordered. Kira shrugged, grabbed a box, and tore it open. Sheathed knives fell out. Four of them.

"Holy mother of God." Cagalli whispered as Kira bent over, picked one up, and lifted it.

It was an old Nazi SS dagger. The crate must have contained hundreds of them.

Suddenly, a loud shriek came boiling down the stairwell and out of the vents. Following it was a sound like a woman sobbing loudly.

The hair on Kira's neck stood up. Everyone watched in horror as the door slammed shut, and they heard the click of the lock. The sobbing sound was overlaid with shrieks.

Suddenly, a phone hanging on the opposite wall rang, causing the entire group to jump.

"Don't." Mayu said, when Kira moved to reach for it. "Just. Don't."

The phone kept ringing. Kira's mouth was dry, and his imagination was running wild.

Ignoring the ringing phone, Cagalli shined her flashlight around, and draped on one wall was the Nazi flag.

Their flashlights chose that time to die. Kira bent down, tucked the dagger in his boot, and dug out his last set of long life batteries. When his flashlight came back on, Kira swept it over everyone's faces.

"Let's get the fuck out of here." Mayu said, and Hope grunted in agreement. Kira led the way. They headed back to the door at a quick walking pace, and they all laughed nervously when they found that the door was still open, but even so, they quickly exited the bunker. Hope locked the thick steel door behind them. Now that the door was shut and locked, they couldn't hear the phone ringing, even though it had been doing so when Hope closed the door.

"Kira, did you keep that dagger?" Murrue said, pointing at Kira's boot, as the group walked back towards their waiting Gundams.

"Yeah. I wanted proof. If we examine it, and there's nothing wrong with it, then this place isn't haunted, and it's just a side-effect caused by the interaction of all these different timelines." Kira replied, almost challengingly as the six made their way back to their waiting Gundams.

"Aw man, this is fucked." Kira said about an hour later, as he stood in one of the Excalibur's science labs, staring at the results of the examination of the Nazi dagger on the screen.

"We were in a goddamn haunted building." Mayu said, her voice rising slightly in volume.

"You want to know what's worse?" Hope asked, grinning.

"What? What could be fucking worse?" Cagalli asked.

"You're blonde." Hope told her, grinning.

Cagalli stood there, staring at Hope for a moment. Then they both started laughing. Kira, Lacus, Mayu and Murrue were laughing with them.

"You know." Lacus said after the laughter had died down. "Considering how many diffrent timelines there are on Earth right now, I'm surprised that the Excalibur's temporal core hasn't overloaded, exploded or otherwise destroyed both itself and the rest of the ship."

At that moment, Lexi, the Excalibur's AI appeared, and immediately began speaking. "I hate having to interrupt this fascinating discussion, but there is a force of more than two-million ships approaching us."

"Two-million ships?" Kira frowned, and Lexi nodded. "That's just excessive."

Blue-red streaks of energy filled the air, impacting harmlessly against the Excalibur's shields, but the mobile suits weren't so lucky. Dearka and Miriallia's Buster Gundam was almost immediately pinned down by the unrelenting barrage of destructive energy. Kira's Divinity Gundam and Athrun's Infinite Justice Gundam tried to move closer but found it difficult in the face of the well coordinated and timed fire from their enemies, which wasn't made any easier with the erratic volleys from the Divinity, switching from one of them and then to the other, whichever seemed the closest to breaking through. "Some back up would be nice!" Kira growled.

"Working on it." Dearka replied, typing furiously into the OS of his new weapon, which had been appropriately dubbed Earthshaker, while Miriallia read off sensor displays rapid fire and worked at anchoring the leg stabilizing struts securely.

"I'm firing as fast as I can." Cagalli snapped in frustration, her beam rifles blasting away at the relentlessly approaching enemies. "They've got really good cover and they're moving around enough that I can't do much more than hope I get lucky."

"Here comes the secondary attack!" Miriallia called out, her eye catching on the radar scope. "Kira, Athrun, you've both got a couple dozen missiles coming your way."

"Wonderful. Just fucking wonderful." Kira grumbled, throwing up his beam shields to catch a few more hyper impulse blasts and bringing his twin plasma cannons into play for a few seconds before he was forced to duck down again. Still, he'd managed to thin the swarm that was headed his way, hopefully by enough. Besides, with Mirror Coated Phase Shift armor, mere missiles weren't much of a threat anyway. None of Kira's or Athrun's missiles even got more than halfway before being picked off by accurate beam rifle fire.

"Done." Dearka declared triumphantly.

"Done here too." Miriallia replied. While missile detonations churned the grassy fields below into a morass of fire and smoke, the Grand Buster stowed its carried weapons onto special racks on its back. With ponderous grace, the Earthshaker artillery cannon slid around on its track until it was well braced by both arms. The stabilizer struts drilled deep into the solid granite around the feet of the Gundam to provide a steady and balanced firing platform. Dearka reached back into the ammunition hopper mounted on the Buster's lower back and removed a single shell, which was more than ten feet long and weighed a good five tons. He slammed the shell home into the breech of the gun and locked it into place.

"I feel like a soldier from centuries ago, with those muzzle loading guns." Dearka muttered. "This thing takes forever to fire." The gun cranked around to the pre-programmed firing position. Everything was still for an eye blink. Then the world shook to a mighty thunderclap. Stone cracked and danced under the Buster's feet and the torso rocked back alarmingly, until Dearka was sure they were going to fall over. The muzzle flash had temporarily blinded his cameras, so he couldn't see what was happening. Miriallia was following the projectile's progress on her radar. The image impacted on the enemy ridgeline.

"Radar says we hit. Did we? Our cameras are out for the moment." She asked. There was a long pause.

"I'll say you did." Athrun said numbly, the Infinite Justice staring at the ridge. He stared at the gaping hole the shell had blown in the enemy held ridge. Pretty much the entire right half of the ridgeline had disappeared in the cataclysmic explosion. Bits of burning trees and melted armor were pattering down like rain all over the place. Lacus slowly brought the Chimera up to a full stand. No one fired at her, the enemy was in disarray.

"What's that?" Cagalli muttered, scanning the ground back to the south of the battle. She'd seen the results of the Buster's artillery cannon shot, and she had been cheered up immensely. The enemy couldn't last against that kind of firepower, especially now that Kira and Athrun were free to advance to close combat range. Some sixth sense had told her to check behind her and so she had twisted the Akatsuki around.

Something was moving through the trees at an incredible pace. Her cameras were panning as fast as they could go and it was all they could do to keep the image in the middle of her screen. And that was at a distance of at least a mile. She brought up her ion cannon. Whatever it was, it wasn't likely to be friendly. "Could you check out this contact for me, Miriallia? It's closing from the south, down in the valley and its closing _very quickly_." Cagalli requested. She didn't wait for a reply before opening up with her beam rifle. She had a bad feeling about this.

Her fire blew trees apart and sent fountains of dirt and rock flying through the air, but she didn't even manage to slow down the oncoming target. Indeed, if anything it increased its velocity. "Yeah, sure thing, Cagalli. Hold on...okay, I've got it. Wow, it _is_ fast. Computers are running the info...come on...okay...no match. Unknown mobile suit or mobile armor, closing rapidly from the south. Probably hostile."

"How rapidly?" Athrun asked.

"Sensors indicate a speed greater than two hundred miles per hour...and it seems to be traveling on the ground, not flying. That's through a forest mind you." Miriallia shook her head. "And not a blade of grass disturbed." She whispered. Well, maybe not that, but no trees were being knocked down she could see.

"What's that you say?" Dearka asked.

"Nothing. See if you can't slow this guy down, would you?"

"Which guy?"

"The one Cagalli is shooting at!"

"Okay, okay no need to shout." Dearka had just finished stowing the Earthshaker. Kira, Athrun and Lacus should be able to finish up without another shot. He drew out his other weapons and started tracking the new enemy. By this time, whatever it was was only a half mile or so from the field Lacus, Kira and Athrun were engaging the enemy in. "Quick bastard." Dearka said with a frown of concentration. He cut loose with everything he had. Beams, explosive shotgun shells and red-blue plasma cut through the air, followed closely by sixty missiles. A section of forest more than three acres on a side vanished in smoke and flame. By the time the smoke had cleared, Dearka expected to see nothing but twisted wreckage.

"You missed." Mir sounded disappointed.

"What do you mean? My targeting was dead on!" Dearka protested.

"Look at the radar. He didn't even slow down a tiny bit."

"That's impossi...ble." Dearka stared open mouthed at the target icon, which had changed course. It was approaching HIM now.

Kira Hibiki, the pilot of the Fury Gundam, smiled icily. The enemy would now learn the true meaning of fear. He activated the Clarity system mounted on the back of the Fury. The system dumped raw fuel into his engines and pumped overflow current through his maneuvering thrusters. In practical terms he got several orders of magnitude faster and more agile, at least for the next couple of minutes. He'd have to be careful. If he let the system run too long his reactor would go critical, which would be a flashy way to go, but he still had things to do in life.

Landscape had been blurring by before. Now, even with his enhanced eyesight he couldn't see more than a blur of green and brown outside his screens. He was piloting more by instinct now than anything. He stopped dodging trees; just bulling them out of the way was enough now that the enemy had given away their position. He would take out their ranged support and then punish the melee fighters for their foolish decision not to run away when they had the chance. The enemy was shooting at him from their position near the top of the mountain. Hibiki went into evasive maneuvers and activated his Geschmeidig Panzer beam deflector shields. Mounted on wire guided pods, they were based off the Moebius Zero gun barrels, but with a defensive goal instead of offensive. Hibiki elected to keep the pods attached to the Fury for the present; the system didn't function too well in atmosphere, with the drag of air friction, especially at his current pace.

"Goddamnit!" Dearka shouted, startling Miriallia. "I can't get this guy! He's too fast!" He blasted away desperately with his hyper impulse cannon and beam shotgun while willing his missile tubes to reload faster. "I'm giving you the turrets, so help out." He said through clenched teeth. Miriallia nodded without saying anything, she could sense his concentration. She tried to catch the rapidly approaching enemy between her crosshairs, but the mobile suit moved like something you'd see in a movie on fast forward. It brought to mind images she'd rather have kept buried.

"Hibiki." Cagalli echoed in concert with her, unknowingly. Her beam rifle was worthless at this range, not that she'd been able to do much with it when he was farther away either. She dropped it and pulled out a beam saber, while filling the air with fire from her twin beam machine guns. She even opened up with her CIWS guns, in desperation. Nothing seemed to make a difference. The unidentified enemy mobile suit...piloted by the insane monster Kira Hibiki in all likelihood...was still storming upslope at her at an unbelievable speed. "SOMEONE HELP ME!" Cagalli shrieked, quite unnerved.

Lacus froze in mid attack. The Strike Dagger she'd been about to finish off tried to take a swing at her with its beam saber, but Lacus's mind re-engaged and she fended it off and tore off its sword arm with a casual kick from her right leg. The enemy fell back weaponless.

"What is it?" Kira asked in concern, spitting a Dagger's head on his beam saber nearby. The enemy pilots were reasonably skilled, and working as a coordinated team it was taking longer than he had expected to deal with them. That the leader was in a Freedom Gundam didn't help matters either, it was quite disconcerting to fight against it and while the pilot was no genius he was still skilled enough to make Kira wish the Freedom was under his control again.

Lacus didn't bother to reply. From the tone of Cagalli's cry, she was in immediate and life threatening danger. She had no time for conversation. She ignited the Chimera's wings of light and soared towards the mountain top as fast as she could go. She hoped she wasn't too late; the enemy had been moving incredibly quickly when Miriallia had first spotted him, though Lacus doubted it could maintain that pace going up a mountain. Still, something deep and visceral inside her clenched with fear and urged her to greater speed.

Hibiki was enjoying himself. He could almost taste the terror of the pilots of the slim gold mobile suit and its chunky looking green and tan companion. They were doing everything in their power to slow him down, but it wasn't enough. He was too fast for them. Too agile. Big guns didn't matter a bit if you couldn't hit the target, and the Fury was a very hard to hit target. Now all he had to decide was how he would kill them. Hibiki casually went through his weapons list while the half seconds crawled by. He elected to keep the beam rifles stowed...in his current mood, blowing them apart with gunfire would be supremely unsatisfying. He wouldn't use the beam grapples on the arms and legs...at this speed he would only trip himself up. And the enemy had Mirror Coated Phase Shift armor in all likelihood, even though his computers couldn't identify the exact class of mobile suits he was fighting, so his combat knives would be of little use. That left only one weapon system besides the CIWS array. The twin pair of wide bladed beam swords. His weapons of choice anyway. Funny how logic tended to reinforce his latent desires. Hibiki whipped them out, one per hand, twin eight meter long by two meter wide slabs of green plasma fire, perfect for butchering his mechanical foes like cattle.

Hibiki would take the gold one first. The machine seemed to be cowering away from him, its guns lifting up into the air reflexively, sending their torrent of fire up above his head. Hibiki was excited. He loved it when the victim knew they were helpless to resist and just gave up and waited for death to claim them. Not that he would make it that easy or quick, oh no. The enemy would get a little while to regret being his foe before they left this world. He put his left arm low and right arm high, planning to take a leg with the left sword and the opposite arm with the right sword.

Cagalli tried to bring the beam rifles down, but her involuntary shiver looked to have cost her her life. The left arm seemed to descend with the speed of a bug trapped in amber, while the enemy rushed at her like a charging bull, dodging her outstretched beam lance with a slight twist that didn't slow Hibiki by a fraction. The twin wide bladed beam swords surged forward. Cagalli cried out in terror and squeezed her eyes shut. When nothing happened for a second or two, she cracked one open again and blinked hard. A red and pink arm was interposed across her vision, less than a foot from the outer hull of her cockpit. The double bladed beam saber gripped in the arm had parried Hibiki's attacks and the Chimera was currently engaged in a clinch with Hibiki's mobile suit, each trying mightily to push the other back so they could disengage their swords.

"Lacus!" Cagalli cried out in concern, tears in her eyes.

"Little..busy." She gritted in reply. The enemy mobile suit was short but massive. It was all she could do to keep her sword in its current position, much less counterattack. The enemy machine looked almost bug like, with the crimson and forest green splotchy paint job and eight large spikes it sported, two to a limb. Engine exhaust ports and attitude adjustment ports dotted its hide like chickenpox, which no doubt helped explain its maneuvering and speed. Six hexagonal shield like pods were attached in two triangles of three, one triangle on the back and one on the front. Lacus had no idea what those might do.

"It's Hibiki!" Cagalli said, backing up as fast as she could go, to give her friend room.

"What?" Lacus said; sweat beading on her face as she struggled to free her sword while also keeping the enemy at bay.

"The pilot of that machine! It's Kira Hibiki, I'm sure of it."

"Me too." Miriallia cut in. Dearka was maneuvering for a clear shot, but it was hard. The Buster didn't really carry any weapons designed for close quarters combat. "I don't know how it can be, but considering how fucked up the timelines are, and that speed...that speed and how the machine dodged our shots...it's him. I know it." She sounded a little panicky.

"Calm down." Dearka said in a slow and sure voice. "We're going to be okay." He switched to Lacus's channel. "I don't want to seem like a coward or anything, but this machine of mine doesn't have the equipment to fight that little monster."

"Fuck this." Kira growled, as the Divinity Gundam unleashed its DRAGOON units, the remote weapons swarming the Daggers and the Freedom leading them, and disabling all of them in less then thirty seconds, before once more docking on the Divinity's back. With that done, the Divinity turned towards the battling forms of the Chimera and Fury. With a flash, the Divinity ignited its wings of light and screamed towards the Chimera and the Fury, hundreds of blinding afterimages trailing in the angelic machine's wake.

Lacus's eyes widened in surprise when the Fury Gundam was suddenly punched away, with the Divinity streaking after it an instant later.

"Hello, Kira Yamato." Hibiki smirked through the communications line.

"Go fuck yourself, you asswipe." Kira snarled, as he activated the Trans-Am system and once again unleashed his DRAGOON units, the brightly glowing weapons streaking through the air, leaving dozens of afterimages in their wake as they pummeled the Fury with beam blasts.


	51. Fury and Purity

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 51**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

"No way!" Kira yelled in shock, as the Fury Gundam suddenly lunged forward and sliced two of his DRAGOON units in half with its beam swords. "You dare to damage the Divinity Gundam!" The amethyst-eyed man shrieked, as he assembeled the DRAGOON units around himself, the remote weapons surrounding the angelic machine with a glowing energy shield, even as Kira opened fire with his beam machine cannons, CIWS guns and eye-mounted cross flare cannons. Kira smirked slightly as the Fury Gundam vanished within a three-mile high, pure white cross of energy, seemingly destroyed.

Suddenly a green energy bolt seared by the Divinity's right wing, and Kira turned to find the Freedom once again bearing down on him, its head, arms and legs somehow restored. Unknown to Kira, the Fury Gundam had survived the blasts from the Divinity's cross flares, and was once again speeding towards the Chimera Gundam.

"This is Kira Yamato, in the Divinity Gundam, addressing the pilot of the Freedom." Kira's voice crackled over the international channel, as his DRAGOON units once again surrounded his machine with a glowing beam shield.

"This is Captain Asmodeus Sark, of Earth Alliance, in the Purity Gundam. I hear you, Kira Yamato. Or should I say, Kira Hibiki?" Asmodeus replied in a weary voice.

Kira was momentarily flatfooted. How did this man know his birth name? But then he remembered. This man was the intelligence director for Lord Djibril, the man who currently led Blue Cosmos. It was little wonder that Blue Cosmos would have a file on him.

"Excuse me, what machine did you say you were in?" Kira asked, scowling. Asmodeus chuckled grimly.

"This isn't the Freedom. The Freedom was built by the space monsters...your people. The Purity Gundam, which you see before you, was constructed by my people...Blue Cosmos. It may look like the Freedom and indeed was constructed to be identical to that loathsome machine, but the Purity is a sanctified machine, meant to destroy the PLANTs." Asmodeus replied, laying on the Blue Cosmos dogma heavily, hoping to have his enemies dismiss him as a witless Blue Cosmos thug.

"Your troops have been defeated. You are alone and you are _obviously not_ skilled enough to be a challenge to my friends and me. Will you surrender peacefully, or will I have to kill you?" Kira asked, ignoring the rhetoric as a delaying tactic.

"Ah, but not all of my troops are gone. You have yet to defeat my champion." Asmodeus countered, calling up the data link from the Fury. To his disappointment, the Fury was currently deadlocked, in a clinch against the pink-colored Freedom upgrade. There seemed to be no evidence of destroyed foes about, so Hibiki must not have killed any yet, which seemed mildly unlikely.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Kira asked, now struggling to hold back his steadily rising anger. He was answered seconds later, not by Asmodeus, but by a scream of terror from Lacus, which was quickly followed by a massive explosion.

"LACUS!" Cagalli shrieked as the Akatsuki blazed towards the still intact Fury Gundam and unleashed its DRAGOON units, the golden weapons elegently sprialing through the air, afterimages trailing in their wake, as they fired temporal inversion blasts at anything that the computer saw as an enemy.

"What's thi-" Hibiki began, even as he frantically dodged, only to be cut off a few short seconds later, as four of the Akatsuki's DRAGOON units fired on him, forcing the Fury Gundam, along with its pilot, out of the timeline.

"This guy never gives up!" Athrun complained, a few short minutes later, as he and Kira tag-teamed the Purity Gundam. "He's lost his right hand and left leg and he acts like it never happened. What do we need to do to get rid of him?"

"This." Kira replied, moving directly in front of the enemy machine and opening his arms wide. A halo abruptly appeared above his machine's head and the thrusters on its back flickered rapidly on and off. A wave of air seemed to spread out from the front of the Divinity. Asmodeus only realized he was being attacked when lightning suddenly coursed across the control screens, blowing them out in sleets of glass splinters. His remaining thrusters died and his cameras went to pure static. He couldn't see it, but his beam sword winked out like a snuffed candle. Unpowered, the Purity dropped out of the air like the stone it had suddenly become. The impact with the ground below snapped off the damaged right leg like a twig and the Purity began the long and painful roll to the bottom of the mountain. Kira drew a bead on it with his twin buster rifle after the halo had vanished.

_'Good riddance, you mindless moron.'_ Kira thought, only a little ashamed at the execution he was about to deliver. However, fate intervened once again, though Kira wished it wouldn't have.

A beam glanced off his back, the energy reflected by his MCPS armor, but the impact was enough to throw his aim off at the last instant. Instead of blowing the Purity Gundam and its pilot into tiny fragments, the beams blew a large crater in the side of the mountain and hurled the disabled enemy machine further and faster down the mountain slope. "What the fucking hell?" Kira snarled, before his screens made sense. Athrun, Dearka and Cagalli were conducting a fighting withdrawal, as what looked like scores of Strike Daggers and tanks assaulted them from the front. Jet aircraft filled the sky around him, firing machine guns and launching missiles at him and Athrun. More Strike Daggers were flying not far off, blasting away in his direction enthusiastically with their beam rifles. They were being overwhelmed. He had been so concentrated on Asmodeus that he had failed to notice the enemy reinforcements.

"We need to retreat!" Miriallia radioed. "We can't stand against these numbers! They just keep coming! We're all running low on ammunition."

"She's right. We need to get out of here." Athrun replied, as the Infinite Justice landed on its subflight lifter, even as the Excalibur dropped the shroud of its Phase Cloak, the huge dagger-shaped vessel seemingly appearing out of thin air, hovering in the sky only a few miles behind the Celestial Being mobile suits. "I'll go help Dearka. You cover the others while they retreat. We'll have to finish him another time."

"You're right. See you on the Excalibur." Kira replied, before turning his attention to the foes near him.

"Kill them!" Asmodeus screamed.

"You wish." Kira answered, his voice now lacking all emotion as he brought both of his twin buster rifles to bear as his plasma cannons and rail guns clicked into their firing positions.

Ten of the Divinity's DRAGOON units suddenly dropped from the angelic machine's wings and flew through the mobile suits closest to the Divinity, which emerged from the smoke moments later, both of its twin buster rifles unleashing a hail of rapid-fire, full-power beam blasts. The Divinity's remaining DRAGOON units swung to the end of its wings, and a field of rainbow colored energy spanned between each wing, as the Divinity's eyes turned purple, flashing.

Inside the cockpit, Kira's pupils seperated into a trio of close-knit mini-pupils. His opals turned multicolor at the edges, extending the spectrum of Kira's vision. He ignited the beam saber on the Divinity's left wrist and flew straight through the still approaching mobile suits, moving faster than even the Excalibur's computer could detect.

Even before the explosions had faded, the Divinity had deactivated the beam saber and brought both of its twin buster rifles to bear, their muzzles sparking electricity. The angelic machine's rail guns folded up, charging energy, even as a rainbow-colored beam field surrounded Divinity, shielding it from all incoming fire.

"Divinity Gundam, now firing!" Both of the Divinity's charged buster rifles fired a massive beam larger than a Tanhauser cannon straight into the formation of mobile suits. The Divinity was the only mobile suit that wasn't pushed back by the blast, its wings of light flaring as the shockwave hit it, finally the wings closed into their normal configuration. Even as the DRAGOON units once again docked with his machine, Kira flew over to the Excalibur, landing on the deck as the massive ship ignited its wings of light and afterburners.

A blindingly bright flash of white light suddenly lit up the sky as a pair of brightly glowing, five-mile wide, pink energy wings extended from the sides of the Excalibur, even as half a dozen, three mile-long, blue-white flames extended from the rear of the ship. The surviving mobile suit pilots watched in awe as the dagger-shaped warship quickly pulled into a seventy-five degree climb and sped away.

Two minutes later, as the the Excalibur broke through the Earth's atmosphere and into the void of space, the afterburners and wings of light dieing away as the vessel's warp engines came online, glowing with a bright blue light.

"Warp engines are coming online now." Cagalli said with a sigh. She didn't want to run and leave Orb defenseless, which was what she was doing now, but at the moment, she really didn't have much choice.

"No vessels of any kind detected within fifty miles of our current position." Lacus called out from the sensor station. "We can jump to warp at any time."

"And where do you suggest we go?" Hope frowned. "Earth is fractured between multiple timelines, and all of the military forces on the surface are fighting for what they believe to be their territory."

"For now, we need to get away from the Earth." Kira sighed. "Cagalli, set a course for Mars." The blonde nodded slightly, and a moment later the Excalibur's warp engines flared, the massive warship speeding away from the war-torn planet.


	52. Red Planet

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 52**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

As the Excalibur silently orbited Mars, one week later, two young pilots entered the hanger and climbed into their mobile suits. Shinn in the Eclipse Gundam and Luna in the Twilight Gundam. Both the Eclipse Gundam and the Twilight Gundam had been modified during the trip to Mars.

The Eclipse now had a backpack setup like the Destiny Silhouette, with two anti-ship swords, which had recently been re-named to; ASS swords, and two long-range beam cannons, it also possessed angel-style wings similar to those on the Divinity Gundam, but instead of being white in color, the wings on the Eclipse were black with blood red accents. The Eclipse no longer had a solid shield, but instead mounted secondary beam-boomerangs on its forearm mounts. The upgraded Eclipse Gundam also carried two beam rifles similar to the Destiny's original, and lastly, all its joints were coated in ruby.

The Twilight also had a backpack setup like the Destiny Silhouette, with two ASS swords and two long-range beam cannons. Unlike the Eclipse, the Twilight still possessed its solid shield, the center of the shield itself mounting secondary beam-boomerangs, the upgraded Twilight Gundam also carried two beam rifles similar to the Destiny's original, and lastly, all its joints were coated in diamond.

The new name for the anti-ship swords which Celestial Being utilized stemmed solely from the acronym for 'anti-ship sword'.

Much to the surprise of the Excalibur's entire crew, multiple settlements had been detected on the surface of the red planet, in addition, all of the settlements were under ZAFT control.

"Shinn Asuka, Eclipse, launching!" Shinn announced, throwing the Eclipse Gundam's throttles forward.

"WAIT, YOU FRIGGIN' MORON!" Murdoch yelled, just as the Eclipse Gundam flew directly through the hangar door, blowing a hole in Excalibur's exterior.

"Uh...should I wait to be launched on the catapult or go out the hole Shinn just made?" Luna hesitantly asked.

"Just go." Murdoch sighed, holding his head in his hands.

"Lunamaria Hawke, Twilight, launching!" Luna announced as the Twilight Gundam flew through the hole, bashing some metal off as she exited the hanger.

"Ughhhhhh, I hate mobile suit pilots sometimes." Murdoch said, even as he glanced at Athrun Zala out of the corner of his eye. "Especially that Zala punk."

"Fuck you, man! I'm in FAITH!" Athrun yelled.

"No one cares!" Murdoch replied. "Now go on standby in the Infinite Justice; Kira wants you ready to deploy at a moment's notice if things go south!"

Athrun growled slightly as he walked over to Murdoch and grabbed his shirt collar.

"What, you think this pin here is a joke?" Athrun shouted, pointing to the FAITH insignia pinned to the right lapel of his uniform. "You think they just give these things away to whomever?"

"Yeah, actually." Murdoch grinned. "You and Shinn both have one, and before long, I bet Luna will have one too."

As the Twilight Gundam landed on the surface of Mars about five minutes later, a pair of bright red ZAKUs moved in close and lunged at the now stationary Twilight Gundam. The first ZAKU, which was holding a beam tomahawk and a beam rifle, stopped a distance away, while the second ZAKU charged at the Twilight, swinging a kick forward as the pilot screamed. "Char Kick!"

"Yeah." Luna rolled her eyes as the Twilight easily dodged the kick and drew an anti-ship sword. "No." She replied, severing the red ZAKU's arms, legs and head. Suddenly, the second ZAKU opened fire with a flurry of beams, the searing bolts slamming into the Twilight Gundam, destroying the machine's head and arms, and pushing it onto its back.

"Nowadays, nobody wrecks Luna but me!" Shinn roared, as the Eclipse Gundam appeared overhead, its wings of light flaring into existence as the machine pointed at the remaining ZAKU with an open, glowing palm.

"Ha, Ha. Innuendo." The ZAKU pilot chuckled, but an instant later, the enemy pilot found that the Eclipse was on a direct collision course with him, palm open and glowing blue.

"Take this!" Shin screamed. "ECLIPSE FINGER!"

The Eclipse Gundam's glowing hand shot forward as the remaining ZAKU tried to lunge into the air, but to no avail as the Ecplise's hand impaled it in the lower abdomen, digging in deep.

"YOU'VE BEEN ECLIPSED!" Shinn roared, firing a devastating blast from the palm cannon, causing the impaled machine to explode in a massive fireball.

Meanwhile, back in the Excalibur's hanger, the other pilots were moving to their mobile suits.

"Don't go dying now." Athrun grinned as he moved towards the Infinite Justice Gundam. "If you die, I might end up being the leader of Celestial Being.

"And no one wants that." Kira smirked.

"Right, no one wants th-HEY!" Athurn yelled, while Kira merely laughed as the zip line carried him to the Divinity's open cockpit, and a few short moments later, the Akatsuki, Chimera, Divinity and Infinite Justice streaked out of and away from the Excalibur, the five machines quickly diving into the atmosphere of Mars.

A glowing red beam saber slashed down at the Divinity Gundam, only for the angelic machine to twist to the side and separate from its backpack, the slash passing between the two pieces, the enemy pilot clearly confused.

The enemy pilot watched in surprise and horror as a pair of arms and legs suddenly unfolded from the Divinity's backpack, and finally, a head emerged from the center of the backpack, sprouting up between the shoulders. The distinctive Gundam-style v-fin unfolding from the forehead as the machine's eyes flashed with a bright yellow light. This machine, which was normally hidden on the back of the CB-X60D Divinity Gundam, was known as the GN-009 Seraphim Gundam.

The enemy pilot watched in shock as the Seraphim Gundam freed a beam saber from its right hip and ignited the glowing green beam blade.

"Well, I do believe I'm dead at this point." The ZAKU pilot sighed as the Seraphim Gundam thrust its beam saber through the cockpit, obliterating the pilot. Kira smirked slightly as he removed his saber from the wounded ZAKU and kicked the sparking mobile suit away, leaving it to vanish in a massive fireball.

"Yes, you are dead." Kira grinned as the Seraphim Gundam's head slid back down, even as its arms and legs folded back up, and finally, the machine docked on the Divinity Gundam's back. Once more, the Seraphim Gundam appeared to be nothing more than a backpack for the Divinity Gundam.

"Difficult times call for difficult measures." Kira sighed as he stood at the head of the table in the Excalibur's massive main conference room about an hour later, squinting at Shinn. "I find it hard to believe that the prospect of abandoning a system that has proven to be fatally flawed and starting anew is so daunting."

"If you've got it all figured out..." Shinn started to say, before he was interrupted by the sound of Kira's palm smacking down on the thick oak table in front of him.

"_That_ is exactly the sort of petulant immaturity that has so devalued my opinion of our so called elite military force in recent years!" Kira said venomously. "Someone speaks out against the accepted norm and _immediately_ everyone starts acting like they've got a full-sized redwood tree shoved up their butt! God damn it all, Shinn, I'm not here to tell you how to do every aspect of your job, because I am simply _not_ the kind of person who would do so! But I _am_ the kind of person who will tell you how to do certain things in a more efficient or practical manner. Please stop trying to make it seem like I'm attempting to usurp control of your mobile suit squadron, because I am simply not! No offence meant, but nothing would please me _less_ than being saddled with a leadership role like yours!" Sitting back down in his chair, Kira clenched his fists below the desk to hide his agitation from the others.

He took a deep breath before going on. "Now this is my idea. From what I've seen of the pilots in your squadron, you usually allow them to go waltzing onto the battlefield, carving a path of destruction and usually leaving nothing in their wake. That's fine in some situations, however, there _are_ situations in which you don't want to cause much, if any collateral damage."

"You're one to talk about not causing collateral damage!" Shinn yelled. "You've completely exterminated humanity _twice_ in the past!"

"I didn't do that of my own free will, Shinn!" Kira shouted back, this time slamming both of his palms onto the table, the force of his palms slamming down on the table causing dozens of micro-fractures to form throughout the heavy oak used in its construction. "I was under an unimaginable amount of stress the first time, and I was mentally unstable during the most recent instance!"

"If you were mentally unstable, why were you even allowed to pilot?" Shinn asked, his voice now raised in volume to match Kira's own. The only response that the crimson-eyed man received, however, was a broken and profusely bleeding nose, courtesy of Kira, as the amethyst-eyed man picked up his laptop computer and threw at Shinn.

"No one questions my decisions!" Kira shouted, even as he began to move towards Shinn, while Lunamaria crouched protectively over her fallen husband, carefully examining his now broken nose and unconscious form. Kira never made it more than a few steps, however, as all six of his lovers simultaniously pulled out their tasers and hit him with more than five million volts of electric current, the massive amount of electricity rendering Kira unconscious in less then a second.


	53. A Moment's Rest

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 53**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

**Warning:** This chapter contains an extreme lemon, and is not suitable for anyone under the age of 18.

* * *

"Are you done acting stupid, Kira?" Yumi's voice asked, as the man in question slowly regained consciousness, his amethyst eyes fluttering open.

"Yumi?" Kira asked as his vision slowly cleared, revealing Yumi standing before him, her body covered by a pair of soft, feathery, white wings.

After a moment of silence, Yumi uncovered herself, slowly spreading her wings and revealing her naked body. Kira could only just watch in stunned silence as the wings slowly opened to their full span, nearly ten feet from tip to tip, even as more feathers scattered around her.

Yumi smiled sweetly as she finally revealed herself. She was completely naked, with only her soft ankle-length hair covering her neatly shaven womanhood and nipples.

Before Kira could say anything, Yumi grinned as she utilized her abilities to instantly lengthen her hair. In the blink of an eye, Yumi's hair had gone from being only ankle-length, to extending for twenty miles. Kira's amethyst eyes widened as his lover's silky tresses then began to writhe and twist, the beautiful locks quickly taking the shape of a huge serpent.

Kira didn't say anything, instead his mouth simply hung open in amazement and slight fear. The serpent's body was solid brown, with the exception of a pair of yellow horns with pink tips, on each side of its head, and its pink and yellow eyes.

"Holy shit!" Kira exclaimed as he stared at the huge hair serpent. "That thing's alve!"

"Yes, it is, Kira." Yumi smiled as she walked over to the bed and laid down. "And I will have the honor of being it's first meal."

As soon as Yumi had laid down on the bed, the hair serpent was already waiting at the foot of the bed. She hesitated for a moment, but then nodded, and instantly, the creature was upon her. Yumi's eyes widened, it didn't feel like a huge mass of her hair, instead it felt as though a real serpent was moving to swallow her. She could feel the warmth of its body and breath. Finally, the creature opened it's mouth, exposing a gaping maw filled with razor-sharp, pure white teeth.

Yumi tried to kick out at the hair serpent on instinct, but the creature instantly had her feet firmly in its mouth. The creature's lips began to suck as Yumi was pulled inexorably forward. Her calves followed and then the serpent's lips were at her thighs. The serpent's tongue caressed each part as it moved, tasting, titillating. Yumi watched, in slight shock, as the creature continued to suck her in. Her thighs had disappeared and the tongue was now at her pussy. It teased and tasted her body, and despite the instinctual terror, Yumi experinced a wonderful orgasm.

Kira, whom had now overcome his shock, walked to the side of the bed, his hands quickly came up and he began to gently caress Yumi's soft breasts. A few seconds later, Yumi felt the creature's throat tighten again, and it swallowed once more.

"Aaaahhhh!" Yumi cried out in pleasure as she felt her breasts being pulled into the serpent's throat, her soft mounds quickly releasing torrents of warm milk. Instantly they were pressed hard against her chest, the warm, wet muscles pressing on every single cell of her tits, seeming to suck on her rock hard nipples. She felt the creautre's lips slide past her underarms and back as her arms and wings were forced straight up by the pressure of its mouth. She felt no pain, only a sense of slight tension in her shoulders and back which faded quickly as a burst of warmth and weakness flooded into her body, causing her to shudder slightly. Her fingers came unlaced, too weak now to hold each other. Then she felt the creature's tongue moving at the back of her neck, and felt its tip touch her face.

The creature seemed to take a deep breath and with another effort, finally sucked Yumi in completely. The beautiful woman saw the mouth close and realized that she was entirely inside the creature. She felt the insides of the hair serpent tugging at her and she rapidly slid past the throat and into the stomach. It was warm and wet and when the stomach began a rhythmic rolling up and down her body, coating it with a slime-like substance, her body responded instantly, and she felt herself becoming even more aroused.

After a short stay in the stomach, Yumi continued to be drawn further into the hair serpent's body. As she was slowly being drawn further into the creature's digestive system, the sensations of warmth and tingling and rippling musculature were intensifying, pushing Yumi to multiple orgasms.

Her feet slid into the entrance of the intestine and it began an extremely powerful and sensual massaging movement, which felt both extremely erotic and continued to draw her into the intestine. After her waist passed the entrance, she felt a large penis-like extension nudge at her womanhood. As she slid in further, so did the appendage, slithering past her pussy lips and into her vagina, slowly penetrating her completely. It didn't stop upon encountering her cervix, instead it pushed on into her womb. None of this hurt, in fact, Yumi's entire body shuddered with sexual delight as she experinced a trio of nearly simultanious orgasms.

Once Yumi was completely inside the intestine, her movement stopped. The massaging continued as a thick fluid, which was both an incredibly potent aphrodisiac and an equally powerful digestive agent, was liberialy applied to the interior of her vagina, but she moved no further into the serpent. A second probe insinuated itself into her mouth. As it thrust itself at her lips, she found herself willingly allowing entrance. It slid effortlessly past her tongue and into her throat, where it halted. Yumi felt it ejaculating a thick liquid that ran down her throat and into her stomach. The digestion had begun.

Yumi's body was gradually dissolving, both from the juices applied by the intestinal walls and by the liquid injected into her insides. She could tell it was happening, but as a god, Yumi knew that she wasn't actually in any danger, and even if she could be killed; she would choose her current ordeal as her prefered method of death, and she would be as much a participant as victim.

Even as her abdomen disintegrated, Yumi experienced another, strong orgasm from the movements within her. As more fluid was pumped down her throat, she found herself readily swallowing it and even sucking on the penis-like appendage. She had lost her more conventional method of vision by this time and didn't remember breathing through her lungs for nearly ten minutes. Less then five minutes later, she felt her eardrums giving way and shortly after that, she thought she felt the thick liquid seeping into her skull. She was right, there was very little left of her body. The fluid, which was ravishing her brain, had a side-effect of stimulating her pleasure center to even higher levels of euphoria, and although there wasn't enough left of her to have a physical orgasm, she wasn't able to really tell.

Yumi felt sensations which she had never felt before and experienced the best orgasms of her life, she felt less and less connected to the universe and then, nearly forty-five minutes after first being swallowed she was, for all intents and purposes; dead.

Kira had fainted only a few moments after his lover's body had been swallowed whole, but now, nearly three hours later, his amethyst eyes slowly fluttered open. He was quick to notice that the hair serpent, which had swallowed Yumi whole, was now gone without a trace, but Kira also noticed that his lover seemed to have vanished as well. Much to his relief, the amethyst-eyed man found Yumi less than five minutes later, silently sleeping in one of the chairs on the salon deck.


	54. Becoming Evil

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 54**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

In the Heaven's Base control room, Lord Djibril laughed with manic delight at the images before his eyes. Resistance fighters fleeing in terror, only to be cut down by Alliance infantry and armor and mobile suits; the antiquated fleet of the Resistance getting blown away, that huge ancient battleship of theirs snapping in two under a Gottfried cannon barrage; the Destroy Gundams plowing through the enemy lines and tearing them open, never to be resealed, before they had themselves been taken out. Grand Admiral MacIntyre already suspected that at least half of the Resistance's forces were dead or wounded, and the overwhelming majority of the survivors were in craven, desperate flight. It was complete. It was unquestionable. It was victory.

And, as the screens suddenly went dark and Lord Djibril's laughter went silent, he knew deep in his heart that it was now meaningless.

An emblem appeared on the screens, and every person in the room gasped in disbelief. Djibril felt fire rise up his spine. He knew that logo, the blue globe and the stylized, swooping, yellow angelic wings.

The Celestial Being warship Excalibur floated silently in the blackness, surrounded by hundreds of ships of various classes and designs, some of which were from completely different universes. The Celestial Being fleet was nothing if not impressive, as it now consisted of hundreds, if not thousands of ships. The most notible of these ships were the Excalibur, the original Archangel, the highly modified Bismarck, the Dominion, the Enterprise-E, the Equinox, the Eternal, the Executer, the Izumo, the Kusanagi, the Minerva, the Prometheus, the Ptolemaios, the Purity, the Relativity, the Voyager and a trio of Borg Cubes.

Fear. It was fear. It was enveloping the Earth like a dark cloud, icy tendrils reaching out to grip everything, every heart, every mind, every soul. The Earth was in fear. And that, mused Kira Yamato as stood on the Excalibur's bridge, grinning for the cameras, made his return that much sweeter.

"Greetings, people of Earth." He said with a smile. "I am Kira Jesus Yamato, Supreme Commander of Celestial Being."

He paused and glanced almost imperceptibly at a woman across the room, but she caught it, and Hope Yamato offered him the barest of smiles.

"Three years ago, you thought we had been destroyed, and our survivors had been exiled to Mars." Kira went on. "But we have returned, and we are here now, not to eradicate all conflict, but to declare war upon you of the Earth; you foolish people who tried to destroy us. We have been exiled, but we have returned, and we have not forgotten. You, however, might not remember. Very well. We will remind you that we, Celestial Being, still live; our hearts still beat; and we are here to take what is ours." He stretched out his hand dramatically. "Mark my words well, people of Earth. You do not know what agony we endured in our exile, but you will. When our war is done, you will know it as well as we do."

Kira's grin flashed wicked, and he clenched his fists. All as he had foreseen.

"We are Celestial Being...and we have returned."

As the communications line closed, a massive asteroid appeared nearby, dropping its Mirage Colloid. This asteroid was known as Messiah, and its primary weapon was the dreaded NEO-GENESIS cannon. As soon as the structure was completely visible, the NEO-GENESIS weapon fired, and a giant beam of death streaked across space.

"Incoming!" Meyrin shrieked as she sat on the bridge of the Eternal, as the Purity floated off its starboard side.

"I'll handle this." Lacus calmly replied, from the bridge of the Purity.

The vision of a blue seed suddenly exploded inside her head. In an instant, Lacus's eyes had faded into the washed out glaze of a SEED possessed individual. Now her eyes were glowing with a bright golden light, while blue and black swirled in her pupils almost as though a tornado was confined within each of her eyes. Everything around Lacus instantly slowed down to a crawl, but she was still able to move at her normal speed. There was a brilliant flash of light and suddenly, the Eternal and Purity were no longer in the firing line of the NEO-GENESIS blast. In place of the two ships was a vast majority of Alliance troops.

"Oh, that is just bullsh-" One of the many Alliance pilots began just before being obliterated by the the huge energy blast from the NEO-GENESIS. The crew and pilots of Celestial Being simply watched as the NEO-GENESIS shot hilariously destroyed a bunch of Allaince mobile suits and vessels, while the Eternal and Purity were now floating off to the side of the blast.

"Huh, so that's what your SEED does." Meyrin said, slightly shocked. "It alters reality."

"Not exactly." Lacus smiled. "There's a perfectly good explanation, grounded in science and realism...but explaining it would be boring and of no interest."

"Sooo...miracle?" Meyrin asked.

"Miracle." Lacus nodded.

"I will...take the Freedom down!" Rey Za Burrel scowled within the cockpit of a pink ZGMF-X666S Legend Gundam, as the machine suddenly appeared and pulled up alongside a pink RX-78-2 Gundam, which had been engaged in combat with the CB-X60D Divinity Gundam, only a moment earlier. "You go after the Justice."

"Don't screw up, Amuro." Rey said, ignoring the hystarical laughter of Kira Yamato, which was now eminating from the Divinity Gundam. "I've put all my hopes and dreams in your hands!"

"Wow, bad move." Kira smiled, finally regaining his composure somewhat.

"Shut up!" Amuro roared. "Be careful, Rey!"

Kira grinned as the Gundam turned and flew towards the Infinite Justice as the Legend and Divinity faced off.

"Alright, junior." Kira smirked. "Bring it."

"You are an abomination that needs to be eliminated!" Rey scowled.

"Me?" Kira scoffed. "Which one of us is not only a clone, but is also piloting a pink Legend Gundam?"

"I will end you; here and now." Rey growled, ignoring Kira's taunting.

"You can try." Kira laughed. "You suck."

"You suck." Rey retorted, unleashing his DRAGOON units.

"I'm sick of you, Rey!" Shinn Asuka roared, as the Eclipse Gundam suddenly streaked in out of the blackness, slamming into the Legend Gundam, grabbing the pink mobile suit by its left arm, and hurling it into the open catapult deck of a nearby Agamemnon-class warship. The pink machine rattled violently as it slammed into a mass-producation Freedom Gundam which had just received launch clearance.

Kira Yamato knew that he would have to be strong, cold, hard, ruthless. That was what eternal life demanded, and when he had needed it, millenia ago, he had failed, and so Tolle had died, Fllay had died, the Coordinators had died, and now it appeared as though even Celestial Being's hopes for revenge had died. He would have to go further, he would have to do more. He had not shed enough blood and cast his heart into hot enough flames to change the world then.

The vision of a purple seed exploded inside Kira's head, and in an instant, his eyes had faded into the washed out glaze of a SEED possessed individual. Now his eyes were glowing with a bright golden light, while purple and black swirled in his pupils almost as though a tornado was confined within each of his eyes. Everything around Kira instantly slowed down to a crawl, but he was still able to move at his normal speed. He would have to be different this time. He would have to be ruthless, uncaring, emotionless, heartless.

Kira glanced at the Eclipse Gundam. "Shinn, take the fleet and get rid of the Alliance forces. Use whatever weapons are necessary. I'll win this battle for us in one blow."

Shinn sputtered in surprise, but Kira switched the connection before he could respond.

"Supreme Commander Yamato, we've received word-" Talia Gladys, captain of the Minerva, said.

Kira's eyes narrowed. No tears were left; this time he would have to be ruthless. "I'm authorizing Contingency Plan Omega." He said, the voice beginning to sound like that of another man in his ears. "Authorization code..."

Talia blinked in surprise. "Sir-"

Images of all of the past tragedies flashed before his eyes, vanishing in smoke and fire. He would make those deaths mean something more than wanton violence or cruel carelessness, and if he had to throw his heart and soul into those very flames of hell...then so be it.

"Thunderclap."

"Authorization code received." Talia replied, straightening up in her seat. "Launch will commence in six hundred seconds." She glanced down at one of the bridge crew. "Broadcast the warning message to all Celestial Being units. We are to evacuate our forces as far as possible from the battlefields on the Earth's surface and in the atmosphere." She turned her eyes out the bridge windows, towards the approaching mobile suits from the Alliance's meager space fleet. The Celestial Being ships were already moving to intercept, their own mobile suit forces sallying forth to meet the threat, and Talia reckoned that they would be enough to at least hold the tide back.

She glanced back down at the planet below. The evacuation order was already going out and, if the tactical map was to be believed, some scattered Celestial Being units were already starting to pull out. The highly advanced weapons which Celestial Being would be utilizing would be more than enough to take revenge on Humanity for its arrogance, while leaving the Orb Union and its citizens completely untouched.

Talia sat back with a sigh and waited for the launch.

"What do you mean, 'pulling out'?" The current president of the Earth Alliance, Barack Obama sputtered on the bridge of the flagship Unity. "We didn't destroy that many of them. What the hell are they planning?"

"All we've verified is that they're pulling their forces back." The soldier on the auxiliary screen reported. "The Celestial Being troops seem to be moving towards a point ten clicks south of our location."

Obama sat back uneasily in the captain's seat. Were they planning a siege? The Celestial Being troops had been unable to make any exploitable gaps in the defensive lines, but if this was turning into a siege, why move their lines so far back? And the Alliance space fleet had launched an attack on the Celestial Being ships in orbit. How could they expect to lay siege to the planet without the orbital approaches secure? It would be child's play to drop reinforcements or launch orbital attacks if the Alliance fleet gained supremacy here.

"What about the Divinity?" He asked suddenly.

"Divinity is currently perfroming atmosphereic re-entry in its flight mode, moving south at maximum speed." The sensor officer reported. "All units reporting in that combat has ceased."

Obama stroked his chin thoughtfully. Was Celestial Being giving up? Was the Alliance on the brink of victory?

Something flashed red from the sensor console, and the surprised voice of the operator snapped him out of his thoughts. "Heat source detected. There's a missile heading for our location from planetary orbit."

"What? Just one missile?" Obama asked. "What do they expect to do with-"

His blood froze as he turned his eyes towards the sky. Yes, there was one missile approaching, and there was only one reason Celestial Being would launch a lone missile at the planet.

"They wouldn't..." He started, a cold sweat beading on his forehead. "Shoot it down! Karl, turn the ship around! Activate the CIWS! Don't let it-"

Obama said no more as the warhead detonated and the world went white.

Everything stopped as the missile impacted and unleashed a blindingly bright, blood-red light. The light quickly spread out to cover the entire planet as the searing, million-degree heat vaporized everything it touched, sterilizing the entire planet, save for the Orb Union, which had been protected by Cagalli's more divine abilities.

For a moment, the Earth registered more than one million times brighter than the Sun itself, but then, there was nothing, just a smoldering cinder, under a great planet-wide swath of radioactive fallout.

The citizens of the Orb Union watched in confusion and terror as the seas suddenly boiled away, revealing oceans of violently churning, blood red lava. The water within about twenty miles of the shoreline remained, but beyond that, only the crimson lava was visible.

It was, in a way, beautiful.

Hope Yamato broke into a grin as she sat in the cockpit of the Destiny Gundam and watched as the light began to slowly fade. She had felt those billions of lives vanish down below. Kira had done well. He would do what was necessary to obtain ever-lasting peace.

"Break formation!" The voice of Juri Wu Nien, suddenly shouted.

Engines blazing, the three Impulse units from the Kusanagi darted apart and let a wave of beam fire tear through the space they had just vacated. Asagi's Blast Impulse lined up to return fire with a withering barrage of beam cannon fire; Juri's Sword Impulse and Mayura's Force Impulse rushed forward around Asagi's blasts, both of them racing towards a squad of Strike Daggers and Windams belonging to the Earth Alliance. The enemy mobile suits broke their own formation to dodge the Sword Impulse's opening sword strokes, but an instant later one of the Windams went up in flames as the Force Impulse opened fire.

The Sword Impulse lunged up and sliced two of the Daggers in half, and then darted aside to let the Force Impulse shoot down a third. The remaining mobile suits darted to the sides to flank the two Gundams, and a moment later, two more of the Windams were blown to pieces by a volley from the Blast Impulse.

"Juri, Mayura, move!" Asagi shouted; an instant later the Blast Impulse let loose a salvo of missiles that pounded another two Strike Daggers out of the fight. The remaining two Windams and one Dagger clawed for distance and showered the three Gundams with beam fire; Juri charged straight at them and tore the final Dagger in two with her swords, as Mayura shot down one of the Windams with a beam rifle shot through the cockpit.

The last Windam backed away behind its shield, but too late, as the Sword Impulse rushed forward and chopped it in two.

"Another squad inbound." Juri said, before anyone else could speak. "Two o'clock! Move!"

The Divinity Gundam shuddered slightly as it docked with its METEOR unit. A few moments later, the angelic machine pulled up alongside the Infinite Justice Gundam and the Akatsuki Gundam as they approached the main NEO-GENESIS array.

"Yo, guys!" Kira smirked.

"Kira, where have you been?" Cagalli asked.

"Just off owning some random Earth Alliance grunts." Kira shrugged.

Suddenly the Divinity peeled off while the Infinite Justice and Akatsuki continued forward, even as the Providence destroyed a bunch of Astrays with its DRAGOON beam spamming.

"Lament and die! For the day of your death is upon you!" Rau Le Cruset cackled within the cockpit of the Providence Gundam, but he suddenly turned the Providence around to see the Divinity Gundam headed straight for him.

"Oh, it's you." Rau sneered, dodging a pair of beam blasts which Kira had unleashed from the METEOR unit. "Are you going to make fun of my evil, evil plan?"

"Actually, I'm not totally sure what it is. I don't think anyone knows. I don't even think anyone cares either. But if I know anything; it's that you deserve one hell of a beat down!" Kira roared as the Divinity opened up, firing with all the weapons on the METEOR and its own frame. Despite its bulk, Providence managed to avoid all of the firepower coming its way, and even as it dodged the shots, the grey machine detached its DRAGOON units.

"You see, if I explain my ridiculously evil plan to you, you'll just mock it. Then I'll just get all indignant and unpleasant. I'm not fun to be around when I'm indignant and unpleasant." Rau grinned as the Providence fired a shot from its beam rifle, blowing the left-hand cannon-arm off the METEOR unit.

"Pathetic." Kira yawned as he casually discarded the METEOR's now useless left-hand cannon-arm.

"Besides, you don't deserve to exist!" Rau screamed.

"Is that anyway to talk?" Kira sighed. "Come on, tell me your plan."

"No." Rau answered, clearly not amused. "Die."

"But sharing is caring!" Kira smiled. "Or so I've been led to believe."

"Share this, you little freak!" Rau snarled as the Providence quickly swooped in and sliced into the METEOR unit with its shield-mounted beam saber. The Divinity tried to blast the Providence away with a full-burst, but Rau avoided it and fired back, destroying one of the METEOR unit's engines and buffeting Kira around violently.

"Argh!" Kira growled. "This getting-my-ass-kicked-thing sucks!"

"Just die, you ungrateful brat!" Rau yelled.

Kira sighed slightly as the Providence's DRAGOON units once again deployed, swarming around the Divinity as they pummeled it with beam blasts. Kira instantly activated his angelic machine's wrist-mounted beam sabers and beam shields, desperately batting away the torrent of beam shots coming at him from all angles.

"Do you think you're some kind of Jedi, waving your arms around like that?" Rau asked, annoyance evident in his voice.

"Actually, I am a Jedi." Kira replied, somehow unaware of the Providence's DRAGOON units as they quickly moved surround his METEOR unit again.

"Crap and a half!" Kira yelled, detaching the Divinity Gundam from its METEOR unit just as the DRAGOONs opened fire and completely obliterated his massive weapons platform.

"Ooh, that looked expensive." Rau said, grinning.

"You'll be getting my repair bill after this fight is over!" Kira screamed.

A solitary DRAGOON unit from the Providence Gundam suddenly moved above a nearby escape shuttle and fired downward directly into it. An instant later the shuttle exploded, no one could have possibly survived. The force of the explosion was powerful enough to send the Divinity spiraling away.

"I'm such an asshole." Rau cackled in amusement, as he watched the shuttle explode.

The Divinity Gundam tumbled about in space for a moment, knocked for a loop by the explosion. After nearly ten seconds, the Divinity finally reoriented itself, majestically spreading its brightly glowing, pure-white wings, as its faceplate split, revealing a mouth filled with bright white teeth. Within the cockpit, Kira's eyes now emanated steely resolve.

The Divinity Gundam suddenly let out an unearthly scream as it ignited its thrusters and wings of light, the sound waves from the shrieking machine actually vibrating the loosely clustered atoms in the void, the shrieking quickly encompassing the entire battlefield. The sudden screaming made everyone on the battlefield freeze in terror as the angelic machine streaked after the fleeing Providence Gundam, an army of brightly glowing afterimages following in the wake of the angel-winged Gundam.

"Surprise, bitch!" Kira screamed, slashing at the Providence with both of his wrist-mounted beam sabers alight, only for the grey machine to dodge to the left.

An instant later, Rau came roaring down with a furious scream and a powerful overhead swing, only for the beam blade to be blocked, as the beam shield generators within the Divinity Gundam's wings flared to life. "There is _nothing_ in this world that could _possibly_ be worse than _you_, Kira Yamato!"

"I haven't attepmted to commit genocide!" Kira lied, even as he turned the Divinity Gundam to once more face the Providence Gundam, the angelic machine's wing-mounted beam shields slicing the grey machine's shield-mounted beam saber in half, leaving nothing but a glob of glowing pink plasma floating between them for a few seconds.

The Providence rushed him again and Kira ground his teeth as his angelic Gundam took a vicious beam saber swipe to the torso, rendering useless all three of his chest-mounted beam cannons.

"YOU'RE DEAD!" Kira screamed in rage, firing the Divinity's eye-mounted cross-flare cannons, the twin beam blasts slamming into the Providence Gundam's head, instantly severing it. An instant later, the beam blasts exploded into a pure white cross of energy that extended for nearly a mile into the blackness. Kira sighed as he extended the Divinity's left palm and bathed the Providence in the purple cone of radiation from the Directed Neutron Disabler, overloading the grey machine's Neutron Jammer Canceller, and without the Neutron Jammer Canceller blocking the effects of the N-Jammers, the grey machine instantly powered down.

Although his heart still ached from all of the losses that he had suffered over the millenia, Kira Yamato knew that there was so much more to be done.

_'By the time we're done with the Earth, the world will be changed...or there won't be a world at all.'_ Kira thought, as he turned the Divinity towards the Excalibur. With steel in his heart and ice in his veins, Kira opened his eyes and guided the Divinity Gundam back home.

Kira closed his eyes as he slowly guided the Divinity back towards the Excalibur. "Am I weak?" He asked, his own voice sounding hollow in the Divinity's cold cockpit. "Am I hypocritical? Have I become evil?"

Yes, he was and he had. He had already nuked two cities completely off the map and exterminated humanity, those were but two of many other, less severe sins which he had commited. He had insisted on creating a better world, even after he had killed billions of people. He could never leave this life he hated, the life of both a God and a Devil. He could never leave undone the work he had started out to do millenia ago. He was going to bring upon the already-suffering human race vengeance spoken of only in their most ancient scriptures. He would become a demon, and everyone, even his descendents, would curse him for what he was going to do.


	55. Strike vs Divinity

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 55**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

On the Excalibur's bridge, Kira Yamato let an annoyed snarl escape his lips at the images before his eyes. Several Alliance squadrons were pursuing retreating Celelstial Being forces as they sped towards the Orb Union.

When the Alliance pursuit unit finally lost track of the Celestial Being vehicles and mobile suits, they realized how exposed they had become, overextending themselves from the concentrated firepower of the previously hidden base, and they were quick to change direction and retreat even though there was no sign of any nearby enemies besides the fleeing Celestial Being vehicles they had been chasing. The lead units of the pursuit units, the combat helicopters, were just beginning to relax as the brightly lit base appeared ahead, framed tunnel like by the trees that grew profusely by the side of the road, the trunks as tall or taller than a mobile suit and as thick as a main battle tank was long! And that was when the bright lances of red-blue superheated plasma came spearing out of the undergrowth from concealed heavy weapon positions, blowing the flight of helicopters to burning scrap before they could even think of dodging. The bright green bolts of regular beam guns joined the thicker blasts from the hyper-impulse cannons, forming a criss-crossing light show that completely blocked the road before the returing pursuit force.

A few tanks tried to trust their armor and bull through, only to find themselves with blown off tracks or holed engines before they got halfway through the kill zones and came to screeching halts before being turned to swiss cheese by concentrated fire. Missiles began arcing out of the darkness as well, striking further back down the column of APC's and tanks, the burning wrecks further clogging the road and making it almost impossible to maneuver. Transports dropped their assault ramps, disgorging squads of armored infantry, but in the confusion of the ambush, many were cut down only feet from their transport, or else ran into the woods and disappeared, many after encountering the enemy, although some simply got lost and died natural deaths. Since half foot long sabertooth tiger fangs in the back of your skull will, naturally, kill you.

The Legend Gundam, Providence Gundam, Impulse Gundam and Destiny Gundam, having been bringing up the rear in case of counter attack by the Celestial Being armor and mobile suits, found themselves outside the ambush zone proper, but with no clear targets for their weapons to vaporize, the massive, geneticelly engeneered redwood trees easily absorbed even repeated hits from autocannons or beam rifles, protecting the emplaced Celestial Being infantry from the heavy weapons of the Alliance forces. The Windams began to push forward to take things into closer range, using swords and fists and feet to crush several hidden weapon emplacements, some unintentionally, before they were struck hard from behind by the very threat they had originally been guarding against, the returning Celestial Being armor and mobile suits. Already half entangled in the foliage, the Windams could not quickly retreat without trampling their own forces, and though some did make that hard choice, it availed them little against the now attacking ZAKUs, their beam claws slashing and winking in the firelight of burning armor hulks as they decimated the pursuit force in a matter of minutes.

Shortly after the ZAKUs hit the rear of their disorganized enemy, the commander gave the order to make the rush to the walls of the base. He'd lost contact with the squadron of outdated Strike Daggers a few minutes earlier, but with the rousing success against the hapless pursuit column, the commander was confident that they had already destroyed most of the enemy's heavy strength, and he ordered a pair of ZAKUs to move up to support the infantry attack to help draw away some of the firepower the infiltrators would have otherwise have occupied. Barely a quarter of the way across the open field surrounding the base, avoiding mines revealed by magnetic sensors in his helmet with casual grace, the commander had the utmost displeasure of watching his picture perfect plan fall apart messily right in front of his eyes. The charging Windams came under heavy suppressive fire from the walls, led by a dozen mobile suits.

The lead wave of Windams jumped back from the wall as the ZAKUs closed in, glittering beam blades raised high, only to come up against a sudden countercharge of Orb M-7 and M-4's, mobile suits on both sides crashing to the ground with flaming holes drilled through them, or sliced from head to crotch by an unimaginably hot beam blade. The Windams returned to the fray almost at once, darting between the Orb mobile suits to fire harassing and disabling shots into the groins and legs of the ZAKUs, forcing them to dance awkwardly backward before they lifted into the sky on their thrusters, desperate to disengage as the wall defences began to turn around to shoot them in the back. Unfortunately, clearing the level of the base buildings put the ZAKUs squarely in the sights of the Akatsuki Gundam and the Chimera Gundam, and three of the Windams were suddenly smashed from the sky in fingernail sized pieces by the blindingly bright purple-white lightning from the Chimera and the eye searing blue-red positron blast from the Akatsuki. The Chimera took a step forward, making the ground tremble for a hundred meters in every direction as it moved its towering bulk to stare over the outer wall, which barely even came up to its waist.

The Chimera braced its legs, deploying external stabilizers as its plasma cannons unfolded from its wings, while the rail guns unfolded from its hips. An instant later, the pink Gundam began hosing down the treeline with endless streams of dark blue-red energy bolts and yellow rail gun shells, over ten bolts per second from each plasma cannon, and ten shells per second from the rail guns, lighting up the early night sky with strobes of blue-red luminescence. Purple-white lightning crackled around the Akatsuki Gundam's eyes as their charge built up, and the remnants of an Alliance squadron realized, in abject terror, that there was no way they could outdistance the coming attack, especially not pinned down behind heavy cover by the beam blasts as they currently were.

"Trans-Am!" Cagalli and Lacus chorused in unison, their machines instantly beginning to glow with a distinctive blood red light as the Chimera's wings spread out. Cagalli smirked slightly as she moved the Akatsuki so that is was positioned behind the pink Gundam, even as a thick cord extended from each of the golden machine's beam rifles and attached themsevles to the Chimera's back.

"Linking complete." Lacus announced as the two Gundams brought both of their twin buster rifles to bear, even as the Akatsuki's own plasma cannons and rail guns clicked into their firing positions.

All of the Akatsuki's DRAGOON units along with five of the Chimera's own DRAGOON units, suddenly dropped from their wings and flew through the mobile suits closest to them, as the Chimera's five remaining DRAGOON units swung to the end of its wings, and a field of rainbow-colored energy spanned between each wing. In the same instant, a field of rainbow-colored energy also spanned between each of the Akatsuki's wings and finally the rainbow-colored energy spanned between the wings of both the Akatsuki and the Chimera. The Akatsuki's eyes sudddenly turned gold, while the Chimera's eyes turned blue, their eyes flashing in unison.

Inside the cockpit of the Chimera Gundam, Lacus's pupils seperated into a trio of close-knit mini-pupils, her opals turning multicolor at the edges, extending the spectrum of her vision, while inside the cockpit of the Akatsuki Gundam, Cagalli's pupils also seperated into a trio of close-knit mini-pupils, her own opals turning multicolor at the edges, and extending the spectrum of her vision. even as a rainbow-colored beam field surrounded both the Chimera and the Akatsuki, shielding the two machines from all incoming fire.

"Akatsuki Gundam, Chimera Gundam, now firing!" The two woman announced in unison, an instant before all four of the charged buster rifles fired a massive beam larger than a Tanhauser cannon straight into the formation of charging mobile suits. The Akatsuki and Chimera were the only mobile suits that weren't pushed back by the blast, their wings of light flaring as the shockwave hit them, finally the wings of both machines closed into their normal configuration. Even as the DRAGOON units once again docked with the their respective machines.

As the smoke and debris finally cleared, nearly two minutes later, all that remained was a one-mile deep, three-mile wide, twenty-mile long trench filled with boiling lava.

Meanwhile, nearly two-hundred miles away, The Abyss Gundam, its chest-mounted cannon sparking, arcs of electricity jumping across its armor, suddenly exploded. Then the explosion winked out. There was nothing left.

Within the cockpit of the Eclipse Gundam, Shinn Asuka grinned. "One down!" He smirked and boosted towards the Gaia, but the Divinity suddenly kicked him aside. He gave a shout as he hit the ocean.

In his white ZAKU Phantom, Rey Za Burrel slashed at the Gaia. It would've been a killing blow, if not for the fact that about midway through the attack, one of the Divinity Gundam's DRAGOON units flew by and sliced off his tomahawk blade. Rey gritted his teeth and wrapped an arm around the Gaia, and dragged it to the Minerva.

Shinn raised his Eclipse Gundam out of the water, only to be kicked onto one of the small, uncharted islands by the Divinity Gundam. The angelic machine landing atop the Eclipse, and aiming its beam rifle dead at Shinn's cockpit.

"What the hell are you doing, Kira?"

Kira narrowed his eyes.

"We've fought for millenia to bring this whole world peace, and you just throw it away in a few seconds. You could've disabled the Abyss! You should've disabled the Abyss!"

Luna saw Divinity pin the Eclipse and blasted off the deck of the Minerva.

"Disable the Abyss? What kind of world are you living in? In a war, you kill! You don't disable!"

"You kill? You're right. In a war, you kill, and the cycle just continues! You kill, and you kill, and you kill, until there's nobody left to kill, or you're killed! Until you're both dead! Is that what you want? If you want to kill and kill and kill, maybe I should kill you right here!" Kira snarled in nearly unrestrained rage, as the Divinity's finger tightened on the trigger of its rifle. "As a member of Celestial Being, you should know not to kill unless you have no choice, you ungrateful little shit!"

As soon as Rey had returned the Gaia to the Minerva, it turned around and took off again, speeding towards the pinned form of the Eclipse Gundam.

The Divinity Gundam casually turned to face the rapidly approaching ZAKU Phantom, the angelic machine opening its arms wide. A halo abruptly appeared above the machine's head and the thrusters on its back flickered rapidly on and off. A wave of air seemed to spread out from the front of the Divinity. Rey only realized that he was being attacked when lightning suddenly coursed across the control screens, blowing them out in sleets of glass splinters. His remaining thrusters died and his cameras went black. Unpowered, the ZAKU Phantom dropped out of the air like the stone it had suddenly become. The impact with the surface of the ocean far below snapped off both of the ZAKU's legs like twigs, and a few short seconds later, the machine began the long fall towards the ocean bottom.

As the ZAKU plunged into the depths of the ocean, Kira glanced at one of his sub-screens and smirked. "I suddenly feel like creating a time paradox." With that, the Divinity Gundam's holoshroud flickered to life, disguising the angelic machine as the legendary GAT-X105+AQM/E-X03 Launcher Strike Gundam. Kira then ignited his thrusters and took off, just as the GAT-X105+AQM/E-X01 Aile Strike Gundam, piloted by his past-self, zoomed into the fray, beam rifle blazing.

"God, did I really suck that much when I piloted the Strike Gundam?" Kira asked himself, even as a green beam blast from the Aile Strike Gundam's beam rifle seared the air to his left, missing him by nearly five feet. Even though the shot missed, Kira still responded to the attack, bringing the Divinity Gundam's hyper-impulse cannon to bear and aiming it directly at the cockpit hatch of the still approaching Aile Strike Gundam.

Kira moved his finger from the trigger when the Archangel appeared a few seconds later. The warship was clearly following the Strike, but what confused Kira was the fact that the Archangel was being escorted by a dozen various ships. These escort ships consisted of two Nimitz-class aircraft carriers, two Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruisers, two Knox-class frigates, two Hamilton-class cutters, two Virginia-class submarines and two Zumwalt-class stealth destroyers.

While Kira had been distracted by the small fleet, the Aile Strike Gundam had actually hit him, the green energy blast piercing his MCPS armor and slicing through his left shoulder, destroying not only the combo-weapons pod which had been mounted there, but also the plasma cannon stored within the left wing and the anti-ship sword behind the wing itself.

"You ass." Kira snarled, as he dropped the holoshroud, revealing the true form of the Divinity Gundam, the angelic machine had regenerated its damaged left shoulder, wing and plasma cannon, but a replacement combo-weapons pod and anti-ship sword would have to be launched from the Excalibur. The Divinity Gundam hovered motionless in the air, spewing brightly glowing green GN particles from its wings as its eyes flashed with a bright purple light.

Before Kira could move towards the Aile Strike Gundam, it once again sniped him, this blast hitting his right shoulder, destroying the rocket anchor and beam boomerang which had been mounted there, in addition to the plasma cannon stored within the right wing and the hyper-impluse cannon behind the wing itself.

"What the fuck?" Kira screamed in disbelief, even as the Divinity Gundam once again repaired the damage. As with the combo-weapons pod and anti-ship sword, a replacement rocket anchor, beam boomerang and hyper-impluse cannon would have to be launched from the Excalibur.

"I can't believe you're still fighting me!" Kira's older-self snapped a few minutes later, as the Aile Strike harried him with beam fire. "Your fleet is already surrendering and you have no reinforcements! What more do you want?"

"None of that matters to me!" Kira's younger-self roared. "No, you don't understand, but maybe you will one day!" The Aile Strike charged, quickly freeing and igniting a glowing pink beam saber from the Aile Striker on its back with its left hand. "Maybe you'll know what it's like to have _nothing left to lose_!"

"I _already_ know what that's like, you mindless moron!" Kira's older-self shrieked, as the Aile Strike's beam saber effortlessly slashed through the Divinity's right leg. "How is this even possible?" As if to make the situation even worse, the Aile Strike suddenly sprouted a pair of glowing pink beam wings. "This is _impossible_!" Kira's older-self roared, his fear taking over with a vengence after millenia of remaining dormant. "The Strike Gundam _never had the capability_ to utilize wings of light!" But sure enough, the Aile Strike Gundam was now effortlessly streaking through the sky on a pair of brightly glowing pink beam wings, an army of afterimages following in its wake. Kira's older-self snarled as he freed and ignited a glowing green beam sword, identical to the one which the Epyon Gundam wielded.

The Aile Strike charged towards the Divinity, beam saber upraised. Kira's older-self merely scowled as an arm suddenly emerged from behind his machine's back, grabbing the Aile Strike's left arm, stopping the saber slash. The Divinity's eyes flashed with a bright purple light, then the angelic machine grabbed the Aile Strike with both arms as it began to separate from its backpack.

Kira's younger-self watched in a mixture of surprise and horror as another arm and a pair of legs suddenly unfolded from the Divinity's backpack, and finally, a head emerged from the center of the backpack, sprouting up between the shoulders. The distinctive Gundam-style v-fin unfolding from the forehead as the machine's eyes flashed with a bright yellow light. This machine, which was normally hidden on the back of the CB-X60D Divinity Gundam, was known as the GN-009 Seraphim Gundam.

The Divinity rattled as the Aile Strike merely batted the Seraphim away and brought down both its beam sabers onto the Divinity's beam sword. Kira's older-self ground his teeth and surged forward with the thrusters to throw the white, red and blue mobile suit back; but it merely charged again, and Kira's older-self found himself forced to throw his sword and physical shield up to deflect the Aile Strike's sword strokes, one after another.

"What's wrong? Feeling powerless? Is that it?" Kira's younger-self laughed, and with a crash he brought down both beam sabers onto the Divinity's own sword. The white mobile suit staggered back; Kira deployed his DRAGOONs to pummel the Aile Strike, but to his horror, the beams had no effect, and Kira's younger-self cackled with glee as he brought his swords down again. "Well, imagine feeling that way all of the time, because some hypocrite and his whores decided to turn the world into their own personal plaything in a futile attempt to satiate their limitless desire for war!"

Within the cockpit of the Divinity, Kira's eyes flashed furiously as the Aile Strike brought down its swords. "You weren't supposed to survive...the destruction of the Aegis Gundam!"

"Yes, well, it turns out things don't always go as planned, do they?" Kira's younger-self shot back. The Aile Strike surged forward. "Remember me, Kira Yamato, when you go try to build your new world!" The Aile Strike slammed its swords down again and threw the Divinity back. Kira's older-self somersaulted over the next blow and stabbed forward with his sword, but the Aile Strike was there to parry the blow with its left-hand sword and drive its right-hand sword down hard onto the Divinity's beam shield. "Remember me whenever you start thinking that what you're going to do is worth the cost!" He swung the swords again. "Remember what you did when you first returned to Earth! What you did to try and end the Second World War! What you've done all your life!" The Aile Strike reared back and slammed the Divinity with an earth-shattering kick to the chest. "And remember, always remember, that every time you try to justify your actions, _it is a lie!_"

Eyes flashing, the Divinity lunged forward and rammed the Aile Strike in the chest with its shoulder. The white, red and blue mobile suit staggered back; Kira's older-self charged and raised his sword to seize the opportunity, but the Aile Strike darted backward and dodged the Divinity's sword slash.

"Explaining to you would just be a waste." Kira's older-self snarled. "You're just a mistake, Kira Yamato, and I'm going to correct you!"

Kira's younger-self laughed, as the Divinity went on the attack, even as the Seraphim Gundam once again docked on the angelic machine's back. "Correct me if you think you can, but you'll never be rid of me!"

Meanwhile, the Excalibur's decks were alive with battles. The Sword Impulse Gundam rattled as, what appeared to be a modified version of the Chaos Gundam, battered it with a relentless stream of blade strokes. The enemy pilot's psychotic cackling filled the cockpit and throbbed through Juri's head as she struggled to focus on the enemy's sword strokes.

"Now this is more like it!" The enemy pilot cried, slamming the Sword Impulse back with a punishing anti-ship sword blow. "It's so much faster than the Dagger, and so much more precise too!" The Chaos charged and Juri felt the Impulse lurch back; the Chaos deployed the blade on its right ankle and kicked upward to send the Impulse's shield spiraling away from its arm; and then, with another tooth-rattling crash, it slammed its right-hand blade down onto the Impulse's swords and sent the red mobile suit reeling. "And these blades have so much more heft than the beam saber! It's wonderful! It makes fighting worthwhile!"

The Chaos charged; Juri scowled up at it and swung back furiously with her left-hand sword, stopping its opening blade swipe cold. She brought down the right-hand sword diagonally, but the Chaos slammed its own left-hand blade into the way, and then ripped a scything kick up the Impulse's chest with its right-hand ankle blade and tore a long gash diagonally up the red mobile suit's torso from which sparks flowed like blood.

"No way!" Juri cried; the Chaos hurled her away and charged after her. "He cut through the Mirror Coated Phase Shift?"

"Gotta say I'm not too impressed, swordfighter." The enemy pilot scoffed.

"You haven't seen anything yet!" Juri shot back; with a flash, she hurled both his beam boomerangs forward and switched back to her rifle to shower the Chaos with beam shots. the enemy pilot sneered and jetted back, putting himself in position to cut both boomerangs apart with his ankle blades. A moment later, he drew the Chaos's two beam rifles and returned fire, forcing the Impulse back on the defensive.

"Well, as the saying goes," the enemy pilot said with a grin; the Chaos rocketed after the Impulse, harrying it with beam rifle fire, "anything you can do," the Chaos charged, "_I can do better!_"

Juri hissed a curse as the Chaos closed in and slashed her beam rifle in two with its left-hand ankle blade. She threw the sparking remains of the rifle aside and took off; the enemy pilot quickly pursued her with a sadistic laugh and a storm of beam blasts. At that moment, two voices eminated from the Excalibur's external loudspeakers.

"Cagalli Yula Athha, Akatsuki, launching."

"Lacus Clyne, Chimera, taking off."

The two Gundams screamed out of the Excalibur's hanger, the Akatsuki from the left side of the ship, and the Chimera from the right, both of the machines streaking towards the Chaos. The pilot of the Chaos didn't live long enough the even register the two threats, as the Akatsuki's eyes lit up with purple-white lightning, the bolts instantly lashing out at the green mobile suit, shorting out its electronics. An instant later the Akatsuki opened up with the twin buster rifle in its right hand, obliterating the Chaos within a blindningly bright column of yellow light.

"_This is bullshit of the highest possible caliber!_" Kira's older-self screamed as the Divinity Gundam's glowing yellow eyes dimmed, the thrusters died, and finally, the angelic machine's armor reverted to the dull grey of its powered down state, even as it began to plummet towards the surface of the ocean far below. However, before the Divinity Gundam hit the water, it was sliced into four seperate pieces, as the Aile Strike slashed its left hand beam saber through the Divinty from crown to crotch, following the slash an instant later with a horizontal slash to the waist.

"FFFFUUUUCCCCKKKKK!" Kira screamed in disbelief and terror as the Aile Strike's glowing pink beam saber vaproized his body with its vertical slash. The four pieces of the Divinity Gundam seemed to hang suspended in the air for a fraction of a second, before exploding into a massive nuclear fireball, a cloud of brightly glowing green GN particles continuing to slowly spread out, even after the fireball finally faded.


	56. Unexpected Alliance

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 56**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

The remains of the Divinity Gundam now silently stood in the Excalibur's hanger bay. Even though the angelic machine appeared to have been destroyed a few days earlier, the explosion had been a highly complex hologram which had been created by the Divinity's holoprojectors.

Kira sighed slightly as he walked into the hanger and looked up at his Gundam, or more accurately, at all four of his Gundams. Since the angel-winged machine had been cleaved into four seperate pieces by the Aile Strike Gundam, there were now four exact copies of the Divinity Gundam in the hanger bay.

Kira's version of the Divinity Gundam bore the standard color scheme of white, with black accents, and was once again being outfitted with four wing mounted weapons racks, with two racks on each wing. The wing mounted weapons racks on the Divinity Gundam's wings currently carried four AIM-9X Sidewinders, four AIM-120D AMRAAMs, four B61 nuclear bombs and four AGM-84 Harpoons.

After a long moment, the amethyst-eyed man turned to look at the other three Divinity Gundams. Pilots had not yet been assigned to these three machines, but he already had a number of canidates in mind.

Kira climbed down into the cockpit of the Divinity Gundam, looking right and left, up and down, working the kinks out of his neck as he ducked his head under the low ceiling of the cockpit space. Kira already knew that with his newly regenerated Gundam there was little need for all the screens and control sticks and even big padded flight couch that he was used to seeing crowding into a cockpit, but it was still a bit of shock opening the hatch and finding a space barely even big enough to sit upright in was all that was allocated for him. There wasn't even any padding on the floor for him to sit on, though Kira soon discovered that the flight suit he'd been provided included extra cushioning on the rear of the legs for just that purpose.

"Well, here goes nothing..." Kira sighed as he climbed down into the cockpit of the Divinity Gundam, ducking his head down and sliding the helmet into place, adopting a cross legged sitting position in the middle of the cockpit space, as Lexi had instructed him before he boarded. The cushioning in the flight suit was surprisingly comfortable, like sitting on an memory foam office chair, and then Kira found his body locked in place by an invisible field that pressed down across his body, the force only noticable when he tried to twitch and found himself as paralyzed as if he was encased in solid ice! Kira put all his effort into throwing his body to the side, even knowing it was barely the tiniest fraction of the force of the acceleration or deceleration he would suffer during combat maneuvers, but he stayed still as if glued in place. The helmet settled into place around his head, deploying monitoring sensors as it attuned itself to his brainwaves. And then, with a sensation like a long blink, Kira found his eyes opening once more, except this time they were the now royal purple colored lenses of the Divinity!

_'Neural Interface Connection established.'_ The foreign thought appeared in his mind as the Gundam started coming fully online. '_Closing and sealing hatch. All vital signs of pilot slightly elevated, within acceptable parameters. Zero Point Module coming online in two...one...Zero Point Module start. Ultracompact Hyper Duterion Nuclear Reactor coming online in two...one...reactor start.'_ Kira jumped slightly as he felt the burning throb of the chained star that was the ZPM at the center of the Divinity as it ignited and began to oscillate eagerly. The heat was almost unbearable, he felt like he was cooking from the inside out, but then blessed coolness washed through his limbs and chest. _'Coolant systems online and flow is optimal. ZERO System coming online...weapon systems coming online... all systems, online. We are Divinity, God's blessing upon every universe...'_

Kira looked down at his arm...at the Divinity's arm, and once more marveled at the technology that allowed his consciousness to so easily transpose itself into the control of this gigantic war machine, so that even the slightest motion felt completely natural and comfortable. His body felt light and strong, his eyes could see in a dozen different spectrums of the visible and invisible bands, and his wings flexed eagerly, longing to unleash the bright blue wash of thruster flame to propel him as fast and as far as he desired to go. It was quite a rush, but Kira only let himself enjoy it for a few moments before he dragged himself back do to reality. Much as it might feel like it, this was not his body, it was a Gundam that he was piloting. He was the Divinity Gundam, but the Divinity Gundam was not him. Even if the Divinity Gundam somehow ended up suffering enough damage to be rendered inoperable, Kira wouldn't be harmed in the slightest.

Kira rotated one arm through a complete three hundred and sixty degree turn, since it was another thing to bear in mind that the Divinity wasn't subject to the limits of motion of a human body either. Kira rolled his shoulders, his wings rustling and shimmering as their MCPS armored surfaces reacted to the tensing of his shoulders and upper back, preparing to sweep wide and launch him into the air. From wingtip to wingtip, the Divinity's regenerated wings stretched more than fifty meters, almost brushing the outer edges of the maintenance stalls on either side of Kira. The angular feather-pods of the DRAGOON units rattled and clicked against each other, twitching in their docks among the armor and flight surface feathers that surrounded them, thirty-six specialized deployable feather-pods to a wing, each capable of firing beam blasts, or temproal inversion blasts, in addition to being able to generate either a beam shield or a geischmedig-panzer beam deflecting shield around itself, and by combining the DRAGOON units, progressively larger and stronger shields could be formed. By creative and practiced use of the DRAGOON units, Kira could capture incoming enemy beam fire and send it back at them, plus many other more esoteric strategies, such as cocoons with which he could trap enemy machines.

Lines of data scrolled along the bottom corners of his vision, detailing the parameters of each system as he brought it under his scrutiny, and Kira was pleased to see that both the detached operating time and shield power of his wing-mounted DRAGOON units had been significantly increased from the Divinity's previous incarnation, in line with the far more powerful ZPM he now had as a power source. Movement in the periphery of his forward vision arc caused tingles of attention snaring alarms to crawl down his spine, and Kira turned away from the inspection of himself, to find himself face to face with the Akatsuki, Chimera, Destiny, Destiny Impulse and Strike Freedom.

"Magnificent..." Murrue Ramius said, not having to fake her admiration for the masterpiece that was the reborn Divinity Gundam, as it stood in front of her. The angel-winged mobile suit seemed almost too beautiful to actually be a war machine, but the trio beam rifles sheathed on its hips and rear waist, the pair of twin buster rifles sheathed across its back, and the physical shield on its right forearm, which mounted a third twin buster rifle, belied any notion that the Divinity was anything other than an weapon of mass destruction. "If you think you've got the hang of it, walk out the entrance there and..." Murrue half turned and was pointing towards the ramp leading up to the exit of the maintenance hanger, still in the midst of her sentence, when Kira brushed by her with liquid grace and disappeared outside inbetween blinks of her eyes. "...remind me that you're not a rookie at this." Murrue finished a bit lamely, even as the Strike Freedom, along with the other five Gundams charged out of the hanger after him and took to the skies in pursuit of the swooping white form that was now racing down into the valley below at breathtaking speed, hugging the rock walls with barely five meters to spare as Kira put the Divinity through a few simple paces, Cagalli, Hope, Lacus, Mayu and Murrue falling into formation slightly behind him after a few seconds of catch up.

Kira smirked slightly as he landed the Divinity on a nearby cliff a moment later, freeing the beam rifle from his rear waist armor as the other five machines landed on either side of him, still in formation.

A list of defensive systems, including a mirage colloid stealth system, a phase cloak, beam shield projectors on either forearm, positron reflectors in the palms and a nano-self repair system, were followed up by something called; Lucifer's Grasp Gravitic Manipulation Field Generator. The GMFG could quite literally catch and store plasma and beam weapon shots for use as melee or ranged weapons of almost any sort conceivable, and the pilot was able to manipulate the fields to generate any weapon that came to mind, through actual manipulation of gravity in a localized manner. The GMFG could not only catch plasma and beam blasts, but it could also levitate vehicles, mobile suits and even warships, affecting up to 750,000 tons of physical matter!

"As of 12:30 today, a special state of emergency has been declared for the Kanto and Chubu regions surrounding the Tokai district. All residents must evacuate to their designated shelters immediately." An automated voice suddenly boomed.

"What the hell is-" Kira began, only to stop when he saw a giant, green, humanoid silhouette, with large bony structures on its shoulders and torso, gill-like structures on its legs, tridactyl hands, and a distinctive beaked face, advancing into view from behind a pair of skyscrapers. "God, no."

"Kira, that's an Angel?" Lacus said in alarm, only to be cut off an instant later, when the Divinity Gundam opened fire with its beam rifle, the searing green beam blast impacting on a transparent, orange, hexagonal energy shield, known as an AT Field, the impact causing the creature to turn and look at the Divinity Gundam, which stood on a nearby cliff, flanked by five other Gundams.

"Hello, Sachiel." Kira snarled, his voice booming from the Divinity Gundam's external loudspeakers, as he narrowed his eyes and raised his left hand, grinning manically as Sachiel was suddenly lifted off the ground by the angel-winged machine's Gravitic Manipulation Field Generator.

"Why do this?" The amethyst-eyed man roared. "What's the point?"

The only response that Sachiel provided was to rapidly fire the energy cannons in his eyes, six times in reletively rapid sucession, the impacts sending multiple white energy crosses lancing into the sky. Kira simply smirked as all of the blasts had missed, not only him, but the other five Gundams as well.

"Wow." Kira mocked, even as he continued to keep Sachiel suspended in the air. "Learn to aim."

Suddenly, Evangelion Unit 04 dropped out of the sky, landing on Sachiel's back as he hung suspended in the air.

"I have a score to settle with you and the rest of your kind!" Misato Katsuragi roared from within the entry plug of Evangelion Unit 04, even as the now purple and black Eva ignited a glowing pink beam blade on its right wrist.

_'How is this possible?'_ Kira heard Sachiel's voice ask in his head. _'You are almost as powerful as the creator himself!'_

_'I am the one you refer to as the creator!'_ Kira shot back.

_'Why are you helping the humans then?'_ Sachiel asked.

_'Because you and your kind promote warfare!'_ Kira snarled as Evangelion Unit 04 swung its brightly glowing pink beam blade into Sachiel's right arm at the shoulder, the extreme heat cleaving through the flesh, muscle and bone as though it were passing through air.

Sachiel let out an ear-shattering shriek of pain as his now severed right arm fell to the ground, the arm and shoulder wounds both spewing massive amounts of navy-colored blood.

"Crap." Murrue's voice spoke over the communications line, even as the proximity alerts began to sound within all of the machines. "We've got company!"

Kira glanced at one of the sub-screens, which was now showing a hollow, translucent blue octahedron slowly floating towards the six Gundams. This was the Angel known as Ramiel.

"Lacus, Cagalli! Take care of tha-" Kira began, only to be cut off as Ramiel's form suddenly changed from its octahedral shape to what looked like a pair of massive crosshairs. None of the pilots had time to contemplate this, however, as a blindingly bright, pink positron beam shot towards them.

"Holy shit!" Kira yelled, instinct taking over as the six Gundams took to the air, dodging the searing positron beam and allowing it to hit the ground, the blast carving out a huge thirty foot long, twenty foot deep trench.

Misato growled slightly as she deactivated her beam saber, kicked Sachiel's now falling form into Ramiel and quickly took her position within the formation which was now hovering defiently before the two Angels, even as Sachiel's severed arm regenerated.

"Damn." Misato muttered. "I was hoping that by kicking Sachiel at Ramiel, they would fire on each other and end up fighting one another."

"Well, even if it didn't work, it was a good idea." Lacus smiled from the cockpit of the Chimera Gundam.

"Ok, enough talking." Kira sighed. "Let's show these two idiots why humanity is superior to them!"

"Another one?" Hope growled from the cockpit of the Destiny Gundam, as a large, floating, black-and-white patterned sphere suddenly appeared to Sachiel's left.

"Hmm, that's Leliel." Kira scowled, quickly scanning the newly arrived enemy with the Divinity's highly advanced sensor systems. "It seems that this Angel, when attacked, will vanish and re-manifest as a large black shadow below whatever attacked it, and that means the sphere we see now, isn't its real body." The amethyst-eyed man paused for a few short seconds before continuing. "Apparently Leliel possesses an inverted AT field, which allows it to take into itself anything in range of its shadow-like body, but keeping it contained."

"Yeah." Misato spoke up, having recalled the first battle with this particular Angel. "During our battle with this Angel, Ritsuko Akagi, Nerv's head scientist, theorized that within the inverted AT field is something called a Dirac sea, which could lead to another universe."

"Wait a minute." Cagalli said, pointing to the sphere, as it continued to float next to the still motionless form of Saciel and Ramiel. "How the hell can the body of that _thing_ lead to another universe?"

"Cagalli does have a point." Hope smirked. "Leliel has the appearance of nothing more than a huge rubber ball that was painted by somone who was stoned."

Instantly, the other six pilots began roaring with laughter. After a few short seconds, Sachiel at Ramiel, whom were not only telepathic, but could understand human speech, also began to laugh hysterically.

Even as the seven pilots, along with two of the three Angels, continued to laugh, a fourth Angel approached, this one with the appearance of a floating creature but lacking humanoid limbs, and with a malformed skull as a face.

_'Zeruel.'_ Ramiel telepathically spoke, the hollow, translucent blue Angel's voice still stifled with laughter. _'One of the humans said that Leliel has the appearance of a__ huge rubber ball painted by somone who was stoned.__'_

_'That's hilariously accurate!'_ Zeruel laughed. _'Maybe we should consider living peacefully with them.'_

Kira noticed Zeruel's thought and immediately took advantage of the situation. _'So, you guys want to live peacefully with humanity?'_

_'After something as hilarious as that, we'd be insane not to want to live in peace.'_ Sachiel answered.

_'Ok.'_ Kira replied, smiling. _'Although, you'll have to be willing to fight alongside Celestial Being, in return for your willingness to fight with us, we offer you our eternal protection.'_

_'I've heard rumors of about a group of humans which go by the name of Celestial Being.' _Ramiel replied, having finally stopped laughing. _'And believe I speak for all my brethren when I say that we greatly admire the dedication that you have put towards completeing your mission of eradicating all conflict from every world and universe that you encounter.'_

The seven pilots could only blush at the praise as the three Angels then turned and left, moving in the direction of the Excalibur. As soon as the three were out of sight, a blindingly bright white light shone down from the heavens, and an instant later, it was as though a thousand needles were stabbing into Kira's skull.

He lost all sense of orientation, and was aware of a violent shudder as the Divinity Gundam abruptly dropped to one knee. Somehow, he managed to keep the machine upright as he fought against the white-hot tendrils that seemed to be trying to burn their way into his brain. His left hand flew to his head as he grimaced in agony, his right forearm moving out before him, beam shield igniting with a brilliant blue flash, as if trying to block the cascade of sparkling, multicolored lights that were now glistening all around him.

While the Divinity had only slumped to one knee, the other six machines simply went limp and fell to the ground, their pilots having been taken completely off gaurd by the sudden mental assault and instantly rendered unconscious.

In Kira's head, there was a strange chattering, quiet at first but slowly increasing in intensity. It was as if dozens, maybe even hundreds or even thousands of voices were speaking all at once, questioning him, scolding him, berating him, mocking him, ridiculing him. Some of the voices were very familiar, some were not, but all of them seemed to be saying the exact same things.

_'Useless.'_

_'Weak.'_

_'Coward.'_

_'Failure.'_

_'No one needs you.'_

_'No one wants you.'_

_'No one loves you.'_

_'Stop wasting your time...you can't help them.'_

_'You can't help anyone.'_

_'All you ever do is let people down.'_

Countless white sparks exploded in his mind's eye, and then the image was replaced by the face of his first true love, Murrue Ramius, her glittering marigold eyes narrowed at him scornfully from behind her thick brown forelocks.

_'She'll never respect you.'_

There was another flare of sparks, and then all five of Kira's lovers appeared before him. They all began to laugh, a cruel, derisive laugh that somehow felt more painful to Kira than the sharp stinging sensations jabbing into his skull. After a few seconds, random faces appeared, people he didn't even know, adding to the mocking laughter with their own cackling jeers.

All of them laughing. Laughing at him.

_'You're weak.'_

_'You're stupid.'_

_'You're a coward.'_

_'You're useless.'_

_'You're nothing.'_

_'We hate you, Kira.'_

_'We ALL hate you.'_

Kira felt a wave of nausea threatening to overwhelm him as he fought desperately to maintain control of himself. His whole body was shaking, his eyes shut tight against the mental onslaught as he tried to force himself to maintain his focus.

_'Shut up, just shut up.'_

The thrumming in his head intensified, a low basso profundo that slowly grew stronger and stronger, until it was almost as loud as the mocking voices still echoing in his thoughts.

_'We hate you, Kira.'_

"Shut the fuck up." He whispered, his voice ragged and shaking.

_'Everyone hates you.'_

_'It's the truth.'_

"Shut up, shut the fuck up!" He repeated, louder this time. His head was pounding now, the battle raging in his head worse than a hundred migraines.

For a split-second, Kira's eyes cracked open, and through the strange kaleidoscope of lights surrounding him, he could see the immobilized forms of the other five Gundams, along with Evangelion Unit 04, projected on his main screen, as well as the twin buster rifle, clutched in his right hand as he held the weapon out before him. The back of his skull was absolutely throbbing, and an icy electric sensation was now spreading down his right arm, as if he were holding a live power cord.

_'Accept it.'_

"SHUT UP THE FUCK UP" He screamed, caught between two opposing forces that both seemed to be trying to overwhelm him. "Get...get out...get out of my head!"

"GET OUT THE FUCK OF MY HEAD!" He roared, raising the twin buster rifle towards the sky, aiming at the source of the painful light.


	57. Summon the Angel

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 57**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

Lunamaria Hawke's urgent announcement from the tactical station on the Excalibur's bridge caused all heads to turn towards her. "Target is moving out of orbit!"

Suddenly Meyrin Hawke's urgent voice crackled over his communications line. "Kira...it's moving! Take evasive action NOW, do you read me? TAKE COV..."

The command was drowned out by the sound of two thunderous explosions that shook the ground beneath the Divinity's feet. The telltale signal of a large object shattering through the sound barrier.

Kira's gaze shot upward, and his amethyst eyes widened in horror at the sight of yet another Angel bursting through the clouds, its glittering wings tucked tightly into its body as it screamed down from the heavens like a harrier delivering the killing stroke to its prey.

"This can't be good." He whispered breathlessly to himself.

The force of the impact sent the Divinity into a cartwheeling tumble that instantly reduced fifteen straight blocks of Tokyo-3 to rubble. Explosions erupted at various points along the path of destruction, sending pillars of flame and billowing smoke shooting skyward. The Angel had climbed into the air once again after swooping down and knocking the angel-winged Gundam off of its feet before its pilot had scarcely a chance to react, and was now circling the downed machine, lining up for another pass. Below it, the Divinity was struggling weakly amidst a pile of twisted steel and shattered concrete, attempting to claw its way back to its feet like a downed boxer from the canvas.

On the bridge, Meyrin was screaming up at the main screen from her position. "Kira! It's coming around again! You've GOT to get out of its way!"

Kira's response was faint, and tremulous, the Angel's diving blow had clearly stunned the pilot nearly senseless.

"It's so damn fast...too fast." He slurred in a ragged, barely audible whisper.

The crew on the bridge of the Excalibur collectively gasped as the Angel's shimmering image glided silently across the main monitor as it bore down on the Divinity once more. From orbit, it had appeared only as a brightly glowing, vaguely bird-like form, but up close, it seemed to be composed of pure crystal, brightly reflecting every available light source that illuminated it. Its mask was hawk-like, with a long, recurved beak, the long tendrils of its outstretched wings were edged with razor-sharp serrations, and underneath its torso were two stubby legs that ended in taloned feet. Its core could be plainly seen through the glassy facets of its chest, but instead of the normal reddish color, this Angel's core glowed with an electric, glacial blue, giving its entire body a faint azure tint. It soared with an almost casual, sinister grace high above the struggling Gundam, and then, it wheeled in place, nosing downward, and pulled its wings in close to itself once more. Once again, twin sonic booms rumbled across the wreckage of Tokyo-3 as the Angel descended with the speed of a thunderbolt toward its target. Kira watched in horror and disbeleif as the shimmering, crystaline creature grabbed his twin buster rifle with its claws and, completely ignoring the MCPS armor which coated the rifle, effortlessly snapped the weapon into three pieces.

"That's impossible!" Kira roared, even as a blindingly bright yellow light illimunated the cockpit, the telltale sign of the ZERO System activating. "How the fuck can you slice through Mirror Coated Phase Shift armor?!"

As if in response to Kira's question, a projectile suddenly flashed through the air, and the Angel screeched in pain as a purple-handled blade embedded itself in its back, right between where its wings joined its body.

On the Excalibur's bridge, Meyrin's jaw dropped in disbelief.

"That's...that's a progressive knife." She managed, staring at the weapon that was jutting out of the Angel's dorsal area.

Luna's excited voice rang out across the bridge, confirming what Meyrin had already concluded from the style and shape of the blade that had struck the crystalline enemy.

"Unit 04...it's reactivated!"

The Angel whirled in place, to see a tall, silver and purple form slowly staggering toward it. Unit 04 was weaving like a drunkard, clearly unable to do much more than walk, but it was walking, and it was slowly advancing toward the Angel step by clumsy step. Its left shoulder compartment hung open, revealing the empty sheath that had held its progressive knife, as it lurched unsteadily toward the winged enemy.

Misato had managed to move Unit 04 into a position where the Angel would not immediately notice it, and once she had seen an opening, she had flung the progressive knife with deadly accuracy, catching the Angel square in the back. Now, she was slowly advancing upon the birdlike being, her breath hissing through her clenched teeth as her fiery rage burned away the lingering effects of the Angel's mental assault.

"You...you son of a bitch." She muttered, "You're not...going to win...not going...to get away...I'll...I'll kill you..."

The Angel regarded her silently for a long moment as it watched the purple Eva approach, and then, with a gesture that almost resembled a shrug, it spread its crystalline wings, exposing its azure core. The sphere within the Angel's chest glowed with a sudden neon blue, and then another beam of rainbow-colored light erupted from the Angel's chest, enveloping the production model Eva in its aurora-like rays.

Misato cried out in pain as the sensation of thousands of sharp, searing needles jolted into her brain once more, and the awful memories from her past began to bubble back to the surface again...but she knew what they were now. She knew now that they weren't real, they were only images plucked from her mind that the Angel was using to demoralize her, to weaken her...to defeat her.

And she would not allow it to use her memories against her again.

Unit 04 staggered as the full force of the Angel's energy beam washed over it, sparkling multicolored lights dancing all around its colossal form, and then, incredibly, it began to move forward again, wading directly into the rays as it slowly closed the distance between itself and its attacker. The hallucinations that the Angel's attack was conjuring in her mind were just as vivid as before, but this time, the violet-haired woman ignored them, concentrating solely on operating her Eva as it staggered unimpeded toward the crystalline figure.

"Not...not going to work...this time." She stammered, a small smile curling at the corner of her mouth despite the intense agony she was experiencing, "You've already...already done your worst..."

With a thought, the tall bladed shoulder pack on Unit 04's left side began to rotate forward from its upright position, until it was pointed directly at the Angel in front of her.

"Your turn to feel some pain." She spat, her brilliant brown eyes glaring at the image of the Angel on her entry plug's main screen. "You stupid son of a bitch..."

A spring-loaded hatch at the tip of the shoulder pack's fin flew open, and an instant later, dozens of long black needles exploded from the compartment, shooting out at blinding speed unerringly toward their target.

The Angel reeled backward as the ebony spikes thudded into its body, some burying themselves deep into its torso, others passing clean through its long translucent wings, shattering off bits of crystal everywhere they impacted. The crystalline bird-like being responded by staggering back several steps, pulling its wings around it for protection, but as soon as it had it regained its footing, the creature spread its wings out once more, and lashed out again with its energy beam, increasing the intensity of its mental attack.

Misato winced as the rays hit Unit 04 once more, making her skull feel like it was on fire as terrible memories danced around her, but she bit back her fear, and concentrated again with all of her will.

Unit 04's right shoulder pack began to rotate forward now, its tall fin pointing straight at the shimmering form of the Angel as the hatch at the tip of the fin suddenly sprang open.

"I told you...that's not going to work...you stupid Angel." The purple-haired woman taunted through the pain jolting through her head. "I'll kill you...I'll kill you..."

She felt Unit 04 shudder as the needle pack contained within the purple machine's right shoulder fin erupted from their compartment, peppering the screeching Angel with another volley of razor sharp black barbs. Crystal splinters flew everywhere as the spikes shattered into the body of the Angel, sending it staggering backwards once more. It suddenly seemed disoriented, as if it had no idea what to do, and once again it folded its wings around it, hoping to protect itself from another such attack. Unknown to it, though, Unit 04 had now exhausted its needle packs, but Misato was undaunted by this as she continued to advance upon the Angel. There was still several hundred meters separating them, but Unit 04 was gaining ground, its pace increasing and becoming steadier as Misato drove the Eva closer and closer to her target by sheer force of will.

"Let's see how you feel...when I punch a hole in your chest...and crush your core with my bare hands!" She growled, her brown eyes narrowing into slits as she scowled at the Angel's image on her monitor.

As she drew closer, she was surprised to see the Angel spreading its wings again, once more exposing its core to her, exactly like the previous two times it had tried to attack her with its energy beam.

"Heh...you just don't learn, do you?" She snickered, as she flexed Unit 04's hands into hard fists and continued to advance.

And then, her eyes opened wide as the Angel drew its wings far back behind its body, and, as its keening wail shivered the air, it suddenly snapped them forward like a pair of bullwhips.

Instantly, the air was filled with thousands upon thousands of brightly glittering projectiles. Razor-sharp pinions shot from the Angel's wings as they whipped toward Unit 04, sending a hellstorm of crystalline daggers streaking toward the purple Eva. Completely surprised by this new tactic, Misato desperately raised her A.T. field to block the attack...a fraction of a second too late.

Misato screamed in blinding agony as crystal shards embedded themselves into the body of the purple Eva, the psychosomatic pain stabbing into her chest, her abdomen, her legs and arms, her face, her eyes...everywhere. The shards tore through armor plate and flesh alike, slashed through the Eva's outstretched hands as it tried vainly to ward off the cascade, and very nearly penetrated straight through to the core, and to the entry plug itself.

Her whole body felt like a raw, exposed wound being drenched in vinegar and salt, and angry red welts peppered every inch of her exposed flesh as the feedback from Unit 04's horrific damage manifested itself as sympathetic lesions on her skin. It was, literally, death by a thousand cuts, and it was pure torture to her. With one last, terrifying scream, Misato's eyes finally rolled back as the pain overwhelmed her, and she retreated deep into the depths of her unconscious mind to escape her suffering.

Reeling from the collective impacts of the shards, spouting blue blood from seemingly every part of its body, and now essentially pilotless, Evangelion Unit 04 lurched backward and collapsed onto the ground, looking for all the world as if it had suddenly suffered a massive heart attack. It flopped onto its back and lay motionless, a dark, indigo-colored pool slowly spreading beneath its horribly scourged body.

The Angel seemed to stare at the flayed form of the Eva for a few long seconds, almost as if it were admiring its handiwork, before it casually turned back in the direction of the Divinity. It had already destroyed one of its enemies with ease, and the remaining six would be the easiest of all.

A feral, rumbling bellow from behind it caused the crystalline being to whirl around suddenly. If the eyes of its hawk-like mask could widen in surprise, they would certainly have done so at the chilling sight before it.

The Angel found itself nearly nose-to-nose with a snarling, growling Divinity Gundam, its purple eyes pulsing blood red, glittering with barely contained rage, the angel-winged machine's face plate had split, now revealing a mouth filled with bright white teeth. Before the Angel could react, the Gundam suddenly lurched forward, thrusting the standard anti-ship sword, which it now held in its right hand, toward the glowing, crystaline, bird-like being.

Immediately, the air was filled with the piercing sound of the Angel's high-pitched shriek, and its wings suddenly shot outward and began beating frantically, as if it were desperately trying to escape. Kira grinned sadistically, driving the sword deeper and deeper, closer and closer to the glacial blue core. Even as Kira pressed the sword further into the body of the enemy, his plasma cannons and rail guns clicked into the firing position and the DRAGOON units dropped from his wings, the remote weapons quickly spreading out and surrounding the two combatants with a transparent blue beam shield.

Kira began to feel anxiety creeping at the edges of his consciousness as he continued to wrestle with the Angel. The winged enemy had a vise-like grip on the haft of his anti-ship sword, and no matter how much Kira pulled and twisted and jerked, it would not let go of his weapon. Desperately, he drove one of the Divinity's armored feet into the Angel's midsection, just beneath its glowing blue core, and the crystal being shrieked in outrage, but stubbornly maintained its hold on the Divinity's blade. Kira redoubled his efforts, sending a flurry of kicks into the Angel's torso as he tried to hammer the bird-like being into submission.

The Angel's beating wings suddenly seemed to catch hold of the air, and with a surprising burst of energy, it sprang upward and took flight, bursting straight through the glowing beam shield, injuring itself even more. The sword remained lodged in its torso as it suddenly shot skyward, and beneath it, the Divinity Gundam was now hanging onto the sword for dear life as it was carried aloft with the Angel. The crystalline enemy was clearly struggling with the extra weight of the Gundam dangling beneath it, but even so burdened, it was still climbing upward at frightening speed. Within seconds, it had passed through the low clouds covering Tokyo-3.

"So, you want to make this an air-to-air fight, huh?" Kira grinned as he gave one final yank on the anti-ship sword, finally pulling the weapon free of the Angel's body. The Divinity Gundam's eyes flashed with a bright purple light, and an instant later the machine stowed its anti-ship sword and transformed into its flight mode. Kira smiled slightly as the DRAGOON units finally caught up with him and once more docked on the wings. Suddenly, a pair of missiles dropped from the underside of the angelic machine's wings, the weapons quickly igniting their engines with a flash of exhaust and streaking towards the still retreating enemy.

Kira was sure that both antimatter missiles would hit, and had he not been merged with his machine, his jaw would have dropped when the bird-like creature suddenly whirled to face the pair of missiles, its eyes flashing with a blindingly bright white light, the telltale sign that this Angel, like most of the others, posessed a biological beam weapon. An instant later, both of the antimatter missiles detonated in midair, the explosions from the Angel's beam weapons instantly forming a brightly glowing cross of energy.

"H-how the fuck?" Kira asked in shock. "First you cut my Mirror Coated Phase Shift armored buster rifle into three pieces with your claws, and now you destroy a pair of antimatter missiles with your shitty beam cannons?" The Angel seemed content to simply follow the Divinity Gundam with its eyes as the angelic machine zoomed through the sky, and after a moment, Kira let out an annoyed sigh. "Fine then, Trans-Am!"

Instantly, the Divinity Gundam began to glow with a blood red light, the angel-winged machine now leaving an army of brightly glowing afterimages in its wake as it sped through the sky, now moving three times faster than it had been less then a second earlier.

The Angel could only stare in shock at the glowing machine, even as a plane of pink energy suddenly extended from the trailing edges of its wings, and with a flash of light, the Divinty Gundam began spewing out even more afterimages, now moving ten times faster then before it had activated Trans-Am.

"If you're so confident that you can beat me." Kira snarled as the Divinity Gundam transformed back into its mobile suit mode, freeing the Quantum Crystal anti-ship sword from behind its right wing even as it transformed. "Do it, faggot!"

The Angel quickly obliged, lashing out with its crystaline wings, aiming to impale the charging Divinity Gundam, but the outcome was much different that what the Angel had intended. Instead of impaling the charging machine on its crystaline wings, the Angel let out a shriek of pain as its wings were sliced in half length-wise by the blade of the Divinity Gudam's QC anti-ship sword. Kira smiled in satasfaction as he kicked the now incapacitated enemy towards the ground.

The now plummeting Angel quickly turned to look up at the hovering form of the Divinity Gundam, drawing its wings far back behind its body, and, as the creature let out another keening wail, it suddenly snapped its wings forward like a pair of bullwhips.

Instantly, the air was again filled with thousands upon thousands of brightly glittering projectiles. Razor-sharp pinions once again shot from the Angel's wings as they whipped through the air toward the Divinity, sending a hellstorm of crystalline daggers streaking toward the white Gundam. Kira desperately raised the physical shield on his right forearm, while simultaniously igniting his GN field and beam shields to block the attack...but just as Misato had been, his reaction was a fraction of a second too late.

Kira screamed in blinding agony as dozens of crystal shards embedded themselves into the body of the Divinity Gundam, into _his own body_, the pain unexpectedly and relentlessly stabbing into his chest, his abdomen, his legs and arms, his face, his eyes...everywhere. The shards tore effortlessly through the MCPS armored plate, the glowing projectiles easily slashing through the machine's GN field, beam shields, physical shield and guarding arms as they tried vainly to ward off the hellish cascade of glittering crystaline projectiles.

The Divinity Gundam's glowing purple eyes flickered a few times, the pilot trying desperately to stay conscious, despite the searing pain. However, after only five short seconds, the Divinity's eyes dimmed, the MCPS armor reverted to the dull grey of its powered down state, the thrusters died and finally, the angelic machine began to plummet towards the ground far below.

"Kira!" The voices of his five lovers yelled in unison, even as the Destiny Impulse and Strike Freedom streaked towards the rapidly falling machine, quickly catching it in midair and carrying it back to the Excalibur.


	58. Tokyo3, the Fortress of Sin

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 58**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

"I didn't think it was possible for us to be injured like that." Cagalli gasped, less than two days later, as she stared at Kira's unconscious form, which was lying motionless on a bed in the Excalibur's infirmary. The amethyst-eyed man's body was now covered, from head to toe, with blood soaked bandages.

"We're just lucky that he was able to kill that damned thing." Misato scowled, having not suffered any truly serious injuries, and the ones she had received had already been healed by Lacus.

"I'd like to know _exactly_ what that thing did to him." Murrue said, doing her best to hide the tears that were now welling up in her marigold eyes. "We can't seem to heal him with our abilities."

Five days had passed since the last battle, and now, deep within the Geofront below the city of Tokyo-3, the three Evas had once more come to life and were already on their way to battle when the first attack hit and tore most of the way through the base's outer armor.

This Angel, number fourteen, had already been desiginated; Zeruel, and he would prove to be far tougher than most previous opponents that humanity had faced and defeated.

As the three Evangelion Units appeared from underground to challenge Zeruel, he attacked with his razor whips and quickly downed both Rei and Asuka before then moving towards Evangelion Unit 01 and it's pilot.

As Zeruel lashed out at Shinji, a blindingly bright column of yellow energy suddenly appeared, vaporizing the razor whip and forcing the creature to take cover behind its AT Field.

The Excalibur had finally arrived and the massive ship immediately opened fire with four of its bow-mounted Lohengrin positron blaster cannons. The four blue and red beam weapons effortlessly cleaved through the AT Field, destroying Zeruel's ability to use it.

Within the cockpit of the Divinity Gundam, Kira Yamato smirked as he lowered the twin buster rifle and took to the air.

"This is impossible! How can Shinji's synch ratio with Unit 01 be at over five hundred percent!" Maya Ibuki suddenly yelled, as Evangelion Unit 01 charged at the Angel, before quickly being beheaded by a beam saber slash delivered by the Divinity Gundam.

"What?" Ritsuko Akagi asked as she checked the readout herself.

"Is it?" Commander Ikari inquired.

"Yes, it is." The faux blonde replied.

"I see, and what of Evangelion Unit 01's condition, is it salvageable?" Gendo asked.

Finally, Maya lost her temper. "Don't you even care about your own son? He could still be alive, you heartless prick!" Maya yelled, unknowingly on an open frequency.

"SHUT UP! He was being insubordinate anyway, it's his own fault and if Evangelion Unit 01 is lost..." He didn't finish, not wanting to give away secret information to the command team.

Back on the battlefield, three pairs of Freedom LPTs had landed near the downed Evangelion Units. The Gundams carried pods containing teams of both medical and maintence personnel.

The teams immediately began swarming over the fallen Evas.

Finding that the Entry Plug of Evangelion Unit 01 was stuck, the maintence team simply cut a hole into the armor of the Eva, in order to get two members of the medical team inside.

The present thought was that Shinji was dead, but you never know what a person can actually survive until you personally confirm it on-site. Too many mistakes like that had already occurred during countless wars in the past.

While the rescue team swarmed over Evangelion Unit 01, the Divinity Gundam was giving Zeruel one hell of a beating and then some, or rather a lot.

The hole was finally cut and by luck, three medics crawled into the cramped compartment and found that despite the wounds and blood loss, Shinji Ikari, was alive and breathing unassisted. One of the three medics called out that he was alive, but unknown to all, Evangelion Unit 01's radio was on and was broadcasting unenclosed.

"He's alive! Get that neck brace in here! We need to move fast!"

The radio operator made a report when he confirmed it had been from Evangelion Unit 01. Turning in his seat he addressed the combat commander, Major Misato Katsuragi with the newly gained information.

Misato, along with Asuka Langely Soryu, the pilot of Evangelion Unit 02, were actually undercover agents working for Celestial Being.

"Confirmation made! Pilot of Evangelion Unit 01 is alive and a medical team from the Excalibur is now removing him from the remains of the Entry Plug." Kira broke out into a huge smile as relief washed over him.

Zeruel could only stare in confusion at the golden-horned, angel-winged vestige of the CB-X60D Divinity Gundam.

The angelic machine held a twin buster rifle in its left hand, a beam saber in the right and had a physical shield mounted on each forearm. The shield on the machine's left forearm was highly aerodynamic, and mounted on the front when the Gundam transformed into its flight mode, while the shield on the right forearm concealed a retractable, super-heated whip, in addition, both of the shields possessed beam shield generators. The Divinity Gundam's wings were glowing with a bright white light as it stood in a defiant gesture, shoulders raised high and ready to fight, the eyes locked in a penetrating glare at Zeruel. The machine's white, black and red armor slightly shrouding it in the night.

Suddenly, the Divinity's eyes flickered a few times, the color of the eyes changing from purple to blood-red before once more beginning to glow with a steady light, causing Zeruel to take a step back.

Meanwhile, beneath the fortress city of Tokyo-3, the ORB-01 Akatsuki literally cut a path through the Nerv troops with the recently upgraded and equipped Sword Striker Pack. The massive Quantum Crystal, beam bladed, anti-ship sword effortlessly cut through tanks and other armored personnel carriers. It also cut through bunkers and pillboxes with ease, forcing Nerv security personnel to run for their lives as a group of ten Celestial Being Custom GINN, and GuAIZ mobile suits engaged and quickly dispatched a force of VTOL fighters that had been deployed only seconds earlier.

The Celestial Being versions of the ZAFT mobile suit models had either blue or pink visors in place of the standard mono-eye configuration, they also bore a pink stripe, painted on the left side of the chest, as well as feather-like wings. These distinctions notified all that these mobile suits belonged to Celestial Being.

The Freedom LPTs, Freedom CGUEs, GOUFs, Tauruses, Murasames, Strike Daggers, Windams, and ZAKUs, eight other mobile suit models produced by Celestial Being, were left unmodified, with the exception of either blue or pink visors in place of the standard eye configuration. They, like all of Celestial Being's mobile suits, also bore a pink stripe, painted on the left side of the chest, as well as modifications to their armor and weapons to increase survivability, range, power and accuracy.

_'Why not join forces with us, Zeruel?' _Kira telepathically asked the Angel now standing before him.

_'Join forces with humans?'_ Zuerel scoffed. _'I'd rather be analy raped by the abomanations you refer to as Evangelion Units.'_

_'That can be arranged, if you wish.'_ Kira grinned, but the only response he received was Zeruel lashing out with his razor whips.

"I can do that too!" Kira roared, dodging to the left and lashing out with the super-heated whip stored within the shield on his machine's right forearm, the glowing weapon quickly wrapping itself around Zeruel's outstreched razor whips, binding both of the Angel's whips together and effectively rendering them useless. The Divinity Gundam shuddered a few seconds later, as Zeruel fired his eye cannons, a bright white cross of energy instantly enveloping the angelic machine.

As the blast slowly faded to reveal that the Divinity Gundam was completely unharmed, Kira glanced at one his subscreens as the crimson form of Evangelion Unit 02 rose back to its feet, completely undamaged.

"Kira." Asuka growled through the communications line. "I have a score to settle with this jackass."

"Understood, Asuka." Kira smiled, as the Divinty Gundam ignited its thrusters and took to the air. "You are hereby cleared to engage and destroy the target."

"With pleasure." Asuka snarled, deactivating Evangelion Unit 02's holoshroud, while simultaniously igniting a blood red beam saber on her machine's right wrist and freeing a beam rifle from its rear waist.

Evangelion Unit 02 looked almost exactly the same as it had before Asuka had originally defected from Nerv, except that now the machine posessed a Gundam-style head, along with more weapons, defenses and design features. The crimson Evangelion Unit now sported a GN drive, which had been modified to emit blood red GN particles, which, unlike the crimson GN particles emitted by GN tau drives, would not harm anyone.

Among the weapons and defenses that had been added to the crimson Evangelion Unit were a beam saber on each wrist, a pair of beam sabers stored on the hips, a beam shield generator on each forearm, a pair of hip-mounted rail guns, a single high-energy beam rifle, a plasma cannon and beam saber in each shoulder pylon, and finally, the ability to generate a GN field. In addition to being outfutted with more weapons and defenses, the crimson Evangalion Unit now had more versitility in battle as well, thanks to the hardpoints which allowed it to mount either Striker Packs or Silhouette Packs. At the moment, Evangelion Unit 02 was equipped with a flight-capable Aile Striker.

"W-what are those?" Ritsuko asked within the Nerv command center, staring in amazement at the modified form of Evangelion Unit 02, as it ignited a blood red beam saber on its right wrist, while simultaniously freeing the beam rifle from its rear waist armor with the left hand.

Suddenly, the voice of Athrun Zala's past-self spoke over the communications line, even as a blue GOUF mobile suit flew by, quickly followed by the Destiny Gundam and Legend Gundam. "If you have to shoot me down, at least give Meyrin a chance to get out. She's done nothing wrong!"

"She's already an accomplace to your crimes!" Rey growled from the cockpit of the Legend Gundam. "There is no meaning to her existence!"

"Rey!" Athrun shouted, from the cockpit of the GOUF.

"He's the enemy, they both are." Rey replied. "They betrayed the Chairman! They betrayed us! They're trampling on our dream to end war! Are you going to forgive them?"

"No!" Shinn's past-self screamed, igniting the Destiny Gundam's wings of light. "This is all your fault! Because you...you betrayed us!" The Destiny Gundam screamed towards the GOUF, sword pointed out ahead of it, as an army of brillantly glowing afterimages followed in its wake.

"Shinn Asuka, Eclipse Gundam. Standby for launch." Lacus Clyne's voice boomed through the Excalibur's hanger as the machine in question was transported to the catapult. "Confimring all systems activated. Initiating launch sequence, hatch opened. Linear launch system engaged, catapult online, power levels normal. Course clear. Eclipse, go ahead, launch!"

"Shinn Asuka, Eclipse, launching!" Shinn's present-self announced as the catapult fired, launching the Eclipse Gundam out of the Excalibur and into the sky. An instant later, the Eclipse Gundam suddenly streaked in between the GOUF and the pursuing Destiny Gundam. The Destiny's eyes went dark less than a second later, as the Eclipse speared the Destiny on the blade of its anti-ship sword.

"Now it's your turn, Rey Za Burrel." Shinn scowled, the Eclipse slicing the Destiny in half at the waist before then turning to face the Legend.

"S-Shinn?" Rey asked, shock and surprise evident in his tone of voice as the Legend slowly backed away from the Destiny as it exploded into a massive fireball.

"Yes, I am the one you call Shinn Asuka." The crimson-eyed man smirked as the explosion caused by the destruction of the Destiny Gundam slowly faded. "However, unlike my past-self, whom I just killed, I know that you are nothing more than a clone of Rau Le Creuset."

The Legend Gundam boosted towards and slashed at the Eclipse Gundam, but a pink lance of energy came between the Legend's beam saber and the Eclipse's anti-ship sword. Shinn blinked and looked at the interfereing mobile suit.

"Back off!" Lunamaria Hawke snarled. An instant later, the Twilight Gundam delivered a punishing backhand to the face of the Legend Gundam, sending it spiraling away and with a flash of exhaust, she charged after it, her anti-ship sword pointed directly at the grey machine's chest.

"Die, you whore!" Rey shouted, as he threw a beam boomerang which he had freed from the Legend's shoulder, severing the Twilight's weapon arm. Rey smirked slightly as he threw another of the twirling pink blades, both of the spinning beam blades coming at Luna's suit from different angles.

The Eclipse Gundam suddenly fired its twin rail guns, destroying both beam boomerangs. Luna scowled up at the Legend and readied her blade, opening her wings of light and streaking towards the grey machine. The two machines came together with a crash and a shower of sparks, but an instant later, the Eclpise came up behind the Legend, delivering a beam shield assisted backhand to the face of the enemy machine, severing its head.

Before Rey could reorient himself, the Twilight Gundam was once again screaming towards him, every beam blade on it blazing. The crimson machine twisted, slashing out with its beam saber. Rey blocked with his own saber, but the Twilight's attack knocked the weapon away, then came the beam boomerang from the Eclipse, which knocked away Rey's beam shielded arm, opening up the crotch for the kick from the Twilight, which sent the Legend flying backwards, end over end. The Legend Gundam vanished an instant later, as both the Twilight and Eclipse opened fire with all of their weapons, nearly two dozen beam blasts slamming into and completely obliterating the grey machine within a huge orange-red fireball.

"Transmit the deactivation signal for Evangelion Unit 02 and force eject the entry plug!" Misato said within the Nerv command center, as she wanted to remain undercover for as long as possible. If it happened to become necessary, Misato could also order Asuka to return to the Excalibur, since, even in Celestial Being, she held a higher rank than the redheaded pilot.

"It's not working!" Maya replied. "The abort codes and the plug ejection codes are both being rejected!"

"Of course the codes are being rejected." Asuka smirked as her face appeared on the main screen.

"Asuka, what is that thing?" Ritsuko yelled, her voice a combination of amazement and horror.

"This is Evangelion Unit 02, of course." Asuka smiled, even as Zeruel's razor whips bounced harmlessly off the crimson machine's MCPS armor. "Please try to be patient, Zeruel. I'll kick your ass in just a moment." The redhead said, glaring at the still attacking Angel.

"That is not Evangelion Unit 02!" Ritsuko replied.

"No shit, sherlock!" Kira's voice interrupted. "For someone who claims to be a genius, it's pretty sad that it took you more than five minutes to figure out that this machine isn't one of your shitty Evangelion Units."

Misato chuckled slightly, but suddenly Hyuga spoke. "The target has ceased its attacks on Unit 02 and is now advancing towards us!"

"Oh no you don't!" Kira growled, as he unleashed his DRAGOON units, quickly swarming the remote weapons around the once more advancing Angel, pummeling its restored AT field with dozens upon dozens of searing green energy blasts. The beam blasts that were being fired from the DRAGOON units were powerful enough to keep Zeruel distracted, but not so powerful as to completely shatter the AT field.

"What the heck? Radar sites 8 to 17 have gone dead!" Aoba suddenly announced. "Oh crap! We've got a JSSDF tank battalion advancing through the Goura defense perimeter!"

"Two more battalions are approaching from the Gotemba sector!" Hyuga yelled.

Even as all hell began to break loose, an automated announcement blared throughout Nerv headquarters. "Closing all Central Dogma barricades up to Level 2. All non-combat personnel, must evacuate via route 87."

"The Daigatake tunnel has been cut off!" Aoba yelled, even as multiple alarms began to sound. "Invading forces have entered Level 1!" At that moment, nine flying wing transports flew overhead, each of the transports dropping a white Evangelion Unit.

The physical build of the mass production units was different from previous Evangelion Units, being narrower in the chest and shoulders and wider in the hips, and apparently covered by the same reinforced plastic that coated the arms of all the Evangelion Units. The mass production units had long jaws with red muscular lips, metal-plated teeth, a large grey tongue, and produced large quantities of saliva. They had no apparent eyes, but were equipped with large, mechanical, avian-style wings that enabled them to fly, and which could be fully retracted into the back. The mass production units also lacked the shoulder-mounted pylons which were characteristic of all previous Evas and stored their main weapon; the Progressive Knife. The primary weapon of the mass production units was, instead, a large double-bladed lance.

"The Eva series!" Asuka asked, staring at the nine white Evangelion units as they circled omniously overhead. "They've been completed?"

"Damn, those things are ugly!" Kira growled, freeing his anti-ship sword, igniting the beam blade, and boosting at the nine units that were circling overhead. With a single slash, the Divinity Gundam effortlessly sliced one of the mass production Evangelion Units in half, and less then two seconds later, the mass production unit had been cut into nearly a dozen pieces, before being vaporized by a pair of beam blasts from the Divinity's chest-mounted multi-phase cannons. Seeing that their comrade had been destroyed with such ease, the remaining eight mass production units were quick to move towards the angel-winged Gundam.

"Ha, bring it on!" The amethyst-eyed man taunted, even as the eight mass production Evangelion Units charged towards him. A few seconds later, the Divinity Gundam violently shuddered as one of the Evas smashed its lance into the chest of the machine, sending it tumbling through the sky. The eight mass production units quickly charged at the floundering Gundam, only for the angelic machine to suddenly begin to glow with a blood red light, as a pair of shimmering beam wings erupted from its back. The lead Evangelion Unit slashed at the Divinity Gundam, but the heavy blade only cut through the air. An instant later, the bird-winged Evangelion Unit vanished within a massive column of blindingly bright yellow light. The seven remaining mass production units turned their heads upwards to behold the Divinity Gundam, still glowing with a blood red light, a pair of shimmering pink beam wings extending from its back as hovered high above them, now wielding a twin buster rifle in its left hand, while the right hand held its combined beam rifles.

"Give up already!" Kira yelled, throwing the twin buster rifle at the now charging mass production units, while splitting his combined rifles and stowing them on his hips. The amethyst-eyed man raised an eyebrow as one of the mass production Evas caught his buster rifle, only to bite into the barrel, causng the weapon's automated defense system to activate and the rifle to self-detonate in a nuclear explosion. The nuclear blast caused by the rifle's self-detonation system was equal to about 100 megatons of TNT, easily enough to vaporize the remaining mass production Evangelion Units, the Angel, and even Nerv headquarters.


	59. Disaster at Pearl Harbor

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 59**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

"This just in...a Destroy Gundam is attacking the Atlantic Federation base at Pearl Harbor." An announcer cried a few hours later, as the main screen on the Excalibur's bridge suddenly switched to an emergency news broadcast. Everyone spun to face the screen. The view showed the middle of Pearl Harbor, with dozens of frigates, destroyers and several carriers moored at various docks and piers. Explosions dotted the harbor area and dark plumes of smoke soared high into the air from where the mobile suit waded through the wreckage towards the center of the base. Strike Daggers, Windams, tanks and jets scrambled to intercept the Destroy, or even to slow down its advance, but all were blown away as soon as they got within a few hundred meters by the arsenal of weapons both mobile suits mounted.

"Damn, I had forgotten how big those things were." Dearka commented, staring at the mobile suit. It was a heavily modified Destroy Gundam, and it carried nearly twice the amount of weapons as normal. Large bore cannons were held in each hand, while deadly looking gatling cannons projected from the shoulders and bulky missile packs sprouted from the legs. Six beam cannons were mounted in two rows of three on the chest and two massive missiles rode in vertical launch assemblies on its back.

"That thing is so slow a ZAFT pilot would be embarrassed to pilot it." Yzak said with a sniff of disdain. "It makes a ZuOOT look graceful."

"Problem is, it also makes a ZuOOT look puny." Dearka muttered. As everyone watched the giant mobile suit cut loose with a barrage of missiles and cannon fire, leveling several acres of base structures and vehicles in less than a second. The second mobile suit was more normal sized, and was less heavily armed, but was still managing to wreak a lot of havoc, because it was still far better armed than any strike dagger could hope to be. It concentrated on warding the giant's back and sides, making sure no one could get close.

"What the hell are they trying to pull? Two mobile suits may be able to cause a lot of damage, but there's no way they can be victorious. Eventually the Earth Forces are going to get organized, and then they'll surround them and use numbers to take them down. It'll be costly, but the Earth Forces will be the winners." Hope said with a frown.

"What kind of missiles are those?" Murrue asked Meyrin quietly.

"Which ones?"

"The two big ones on the back of the Destroy Gundam."

"They look sort of familiar, but I can't place them. They remind me of the bunker busters the GINN's sometimes carried, but these are bigger." Meyrin said, peering closer. Her mouth dropped open and her hands started trembling. "Yzak... come here and tell me that's not what I'm afraid it is." Meyrin said in a whisper. Yzak darted over and stared at where Meyrin was pointing.

"THAT'S A FUCKING NUKE!" Yzak shouted.

"WHAT?" Kira, Athrun, Dearka and Lacus chorused. Before anyone could move further, both missiles launched from the back of the Destroy and roared into the sky. The Destroy started to retreat, sowing death as they walked backwards.

"Pearl Harbor is about thirty miles from our current position...will the nukes in those missiles have the punch to hurt us here?" Hope asked Meyrin. Meyrin shrugged.

"If they put a couple megatons in them, sure, easy. Anywhere at about ten megatons and up, you'd probably feel the shockwave around the world. Of course, Pearl Harbor and most of the surrounding five miles would be nothing but a blast crater then, and that giant mobile suit would be part of the cloud of radioactive smoke, so I doubt it's that powerful. It's more likely that they're tactical nukes. Point five to five kilotons, maybe multiple warheads. Figure a blast radius of around a kilometer, shockwave and fire damage out to triple that. Out here we'll get to see a nice light show, experience an ungodly amount of wind, and get to watch the plumes of smoke turn into a spectacular mushroom cloud. That's it though. Oh, and maybe a tsunami, if enough of the explosion happens in the harbor proper." Meyrin reported after a few moments thought.

"What about the people at the fleet base and the city of Pearl Harbor?" Kira asked. Meyrin shrugged again, this time dispiritedly.

"I'm figuring close to fifty to sixty percent blast casualties, considering its lunch hour. Maybe another twenty percent collateral casualties and who knows what sort of damage from radiation. A good three quarters of everybody within the shockwave radius is going to be dead in a few minutes." Meyrin told everyone.

"You seem pretty calm." Dearka noted. "It doesn't bother you to talk about all those helpless people like they're nothing but percentages and figures?"

"Hey, I'm not happy about this. But you're not one to talk. All you mobile suit pilots ever see is the enemy machine. You never have to actually see the people you're killing, don't have to look them in the eye when you pull the trigger or press the switch. After you've done that a few times, maybe then I'll let you criticize me." Meyrin snarled. Dearka held up his hands placatingly.

"Is there nothing we can do to help?" Kira asked, his fists clenched.

"No." Hope said decisively. "We can get revenge, that's about it."

"So we can do nothing but pray?" Lacus said. Hope nodded, her eyes blazing.

"Who would do this? ZAFT?" Cagalli asked into the silence.

"Hardly. The civilians would murder us all in our beds if we initiated an unprovoked nuclear attack on Earth." Yzak declared. It was at this time that two streaks of light barely identifiable to the Coordinators present as the two missiles shot down from the heavens back into the view of the camera.

"Oh…" The cameraman and reporter on scene were heard to mutter before the entire screen flashed blinding white before turning to static and then black as Murrue turned it off. Nothing happened for a minute or two, leaving everyone to look around in puzzlement and hope. However, the faint ray of hope was soon extinguished when the ground trembled slightly all around them.

"There's the concussion wave." Meyrin noted dryly. No one said anything as the tremors continued for several more minutes before dying away. "It should be safe now, if we want to go topside. Nukes that small, the radiation will be confined mostly to the blast area." Without a word, everyone hurried for the stairs up and out of the bunker complex. Yzak was first up the stairs.

"Oh...man…" He gasped, staring at the double mushroom cloud that glowed brilliant pink and orange and grey on the horizon. That entire section of sky was tinted orange and red from all the vaporized dust swirling through the air. As people came out behind Yzak they each responded in their own way. Shinn and Lumanaria murmured curses under their breath at the awful sight, while Lacus and Miriallia were quick to shed tears for all those lost, while Kira stood as still as a statue. Dearka tried to comfort Mir, but was struggling not to weep himself. He remembered Junius Seven as well as any Coordinator. Any Coordinator that didn't cry or feel horrible at seeing a nuclear attack had something wrong with them, in his opinion. Hell, anyone that didn't feel a twinge of fear when seeing a mushroom cloud was a little crazy, in his opinion, Natural or Coordinator.

"That'll light a fire under their asses." Adolf Hitler commented smugly as he watched the screen. He stood in a private observation dome in Berlin, Germany.

Celestial Being was quick to mount a rescue effort; dozens of Gundams, along with hundreds of fighter and transport aircraft screaming out of the Excalibur's hangers. Out near the fringes of the city, where the Akatsuki, Buster, Chimera, Destiny, Divinity, Duel, Force Impulse, Strike Freedom, and Wing Gundam had landed, the damage wasn't so bad, but even so, the group had decided to merge with their machines, shrink them to human size and utilize the holoshrouds to project their human vestiges over the armor.

As the group began to search, they noticed that a few small buildings had collapsed and there was a lot of broken glass and debris lying around, but for the most part the buildings were standing and the streets were clear. Fires burned in some spots, sending plumes of grayish smoke into the air and several cars were overturned at one intersection, not from the blast but from the driver's panicking due to the explosion.

Of course, the area was still devastated and scores of people in various stages of shock or injury lay, sat or walked about. Kira immediately helped an eldery woman sit down; the woman was bleeding from a ragged gash on one arm and above her left eye, but was just wandering aimlessly about. Dearka and Miriallia went into a nearby building, the remains of a small business it looked like and started helping people with glass cuts and a few broken bones make their way out of the lobby and nearby office spaces. Kira left the eldery woman with Lacus and searched out the more seriously wounded people he could see.

Kira had to shut his eyes at times, to avoid looking at the bodies and parts of bodies that were scattered here and there in the ruined buildings and near the wrecked cars. Some body parts were charred, almost skeletal and must have been thrown here from much closer to the blast area. Most injuries consisted of cuts or gashes from flying glass or debris, or broken bones from being knocked around by the concussion wave. The more serious cases consisted of two compound thigh fractures, which required most of Lacus's attention, several amputated fingers, an amputated ear, and the worst case, a man who had caught a face full of molten glass, which blinded him and covered more than half his face in third degree burns.

"These poor people." Lacus sobbed. Kira put an arm on her shoulder to comfort her and tried to stifle his own emotions.

_'How can people fight wars when this is the result? Why do weapons like nuclear missiles even exist?'_ Kira thought, his anger slowly yet steadily rising.

"How could they do this?" Lacus asked through her tears.

"Can't they see how pointless wars are?" Cagalli complained.

"They can't. That's the problem. Their hate and fear blinds them so much that they can't see even something as obvious as that." Kira snarled, as Dearka, whom was merged with his Buster Gundam, and Miriallia, whom was merged with the Wing Gundam, came over to them.

"Why don't you and Lacus go out and do some searching and leave the tending to Mir and I for the moment." Dearka suggested. "Going through those ruined buildings takes a lot out of you."

"Physically and emotionally." Mir added tiredly. "Those poor people...a lot of them never knew what hit them. We...we searched through a collapsed day care center...it...was..."

"Shh. It's okay." Dearka said, interrupting her as he pulled her into a tight embrace. He looked at Kira. "You should be careful. We stumbled into a few _very_ bad sights. And some of these buildings are only standing by a little bit. I saw several stairways collapse just as I walked by."

For a block or so there were no buildings that looked even remotely safe to enter, so Kira and Lacus stuck to the street. They had just reached another intersection when the noise of a car engine caused Kira to halt. "Someone's coming." He told Lacus. Some sixth sense told Kira to get off the street, so he did, pulling Lacus into a partly collapsed convenience store.

"What?" Lacus breathed into his ear.

"A bad feeling." Kira replied. He watched the intersection carefully. The car noise drew steadily closer. As it did so, several nearby civilians noticed and ran towards the intersection.

"Hey...a car, a car!" One shouted.

"Stop! Stop, please!" Another cried.

"I'm hurt! Please take me to a hospital!" A third yelled, holding up a heavily bandaged arm that had red stains all over it. Kira's bad feeling got about ten times worse, as the car noise dropped off very suddenly, likely because the car had slowed to a walk. Kira looked expectantly at the intersection, as did Lacus. They were so intent on the people outside Kira didn't notice the back door to the store opening until the man in urban camouflage was completely past the threshold. Kira spun as the man brought up his wicked looking assault rifle. Lacus screamed as the man opened up with a short burst of automatic fire that shredded the shelving around them. Kira dived on top of her and crushed them both flat to the floor.

"Two civilian kids. They're in the store on your right." Kira heard the man whisper very quietly. "They're still alive. I just warned them. How should I proceed?" The soldier continued, obviously talking to someone through a communication device. "It's just the kids, the rest of the place is clear." The soldier paused a moment. "Yes, sir." He said respectfully. "Okay, kids, sorry for the scare there." The soldier said in a normal voice. "There's an important person being evactuated past here and we're all a little jumpy. You two just stay right where you are until the jeep passes and we'll have no problems."

"Why the fucking hell did you shoot at us?" Kira asked, his anger slowly taking hold.

"Like I said, we're all a little jumpy. This place just got nuked ya know. The damn PLANTs sent some of their new mobile suit models down to tear up the fleet base. They did a damn good job of it too, damn them. There's not much left of the pacific fleet. And then they nuked the city, just like those monsters have always wanted to do." The man replied evenly.

"Why would they want to nuke a city? They know what that's like. Why would they want to do that to us?" Lacus asked, trying to circumspectly point out the error in the soldier's thinking. The man laughed, from his position by the rear door.

"Why do the damn Coordinators do anything? They're genocidal war maniacs, that's why. Space monsters." He replied with more than a hint of bitterness.

"That's not true!" Lacus couldn't help but blurt out. The soldier's laugh took on a grim tone.

"Isn't it? You two probably don't know much about it, but the PLANTs used a weapon called GENESIS to wipe out the Ptolemais Lunar Base. They were going to fire it at Earth, to kill everyone, but it was blown up before they could." The soldier replied. Kira heard him moving toward the front of the store and he clamped a hand over Lacus's mouth to keep her from replying and possibly getting the soldier angry. The man was plainly an adherent of the Blue Cosmos philosophy. "Smokes...don't mind if I do." The soldier said lightly. Kira could just barely make out the man reach over the counter and rummage around in the tobacco cabinent. "Not like the storekeeper's ever gonna smoke again, with that wound."

"What storekeeper?" Kira asked.

"The dead guy with half his head missing behind the counter here. Looks like he was facing away from the blast wave that threw the cash register into his skull. Messy. You shouldn't look at it." The soldier replied calmly, like seeing a horribly dead man lying on the ground was nothing strange. There came a clicking noise and the smell of smoke. "Ah, that tastes good." The soldier commented to nobody in particular. He stared out at the intersection. "Damn civilians are gonna get killed if they don't get out of the way."

"The people outside?" Kira asked. "But they're just trying to get help."

"They should get it elsewhere. The jeep doesn't have time for them." The soldier said flatly.

"Hey! Stop! My brother needs help! Stop!" One of the civilians outside yelled.

"Fool." The soldier said contemptuously as a single gunshot sounded from outside. The civilian stopped yelling.

"YOU HEARTLESS BASTARDS!" Cagalli shrieked, freeing the beam rifle from her machine's rear waist armor and shooting the soldier in the face, the searing green energy blast instantly vaporizing his head before then continuing and punching through the entrance of the building. Reacting to the beam blast which had suddenly emerged from the entrance of the store, soldiers stormed in, assault rifles already firing, the rounds pinging loudly and uselessly off the armor of the camouflaged Gundams.

"Morons." Kira muttered, as half a dozen DRAGOON units dropped from his wings, the remote weapons flying forward and stabbing each soldier through the heart and head. "If you hadn't executed those civilians, you might still be alive."

"This reminds me of Orb during the Earth Alliance invasion." Cagalli said as she, Lacus and Murrue forged ever deeper into the city. They were moving building to building, reasoning that the people most seriously injured were likely to be trapped in the buildings, not walking around on the street outside, and so far they hadn't found many wounded people. The people they had found were so obviously dead that neither Cagalli, Lacus or Murrue even stopped for a moment. People missing both arms or with a wooden spar through their chest didn't need first aid, they needed funerals.

The group of nine had now split into three groups of three, in order to cover more ground in less time. Cagalli, Lacus and Murrue in the first group; Kira, Hope and Mayu in the second group; and Dearka, Yzak and Miriallia in the third group.

"Except that in Orb, there were few civilian casualties." Lacus said grimly, wiping at some dried blood that had seeped out from under a collapsed wall. Yet another person that wouldn't need saving. "Watch the stairs; I don't think they're very safe."

Cagalli picked up a chair and pushed it down the stairs. True to Lacus's prediction, the stairway collapsed after the first few steps down. "I love how perceptive you are." The blonde commented with a small smile. Lacus and Murrue then finished searching the room with both eyes and ears.


	60. Fuel for the Fire

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 60**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

Now, less then three hours later, the Akatsuki, Chimera, Destiny, Divinity, Impulse, and Strike Freedom were streaking through the skies above the Sahara Desert. Behind the seven Gundams, protected underneath the shroud of its phase cloak, was the warship Excalibur.

"We're being hailed over the international distress channel." Lacus said, even as she patched the ZAFT commander into the communications line.

"This is Kira Yamato, Supreme Commander of Celestial Being, in the Divinity Gundam. Calling the commander of the ZAFT forces. Can you hear me? I would prefer to avoid needless bloodshed and merely wish to talk. Please respond."

"Who the hell is Kira Yamato?" Aireg Randolf asked from the cockpit of his ZAKU.

"Beats the hell out of me, sir. I don't even recognize the rank or name of the military force he gave...I wonder which side he is on."

"Not ours, if the scout team is anything to judge by. Fine, I'll humor him. It gives us more time to get a target lock. How's that going by the way?" Randolf replied.

"Difficult, sir. His sensor jamming and stealth systems are quite good...better than anything I've ever seen. The computers just about refuse to give me a solid lock for more than a quarter second. And he's not even maneuvering yet. Let's let him get closer."

"This is Commander Aireg Randolf, commanding officer of Gibraltar base and officer in charge of the North African Theater. Who are you and what do you want?" Randolf replied on the open channel. He was caught completely off guard by the reply.

"Commander Randolf?" An achingly familiar female voice answered him a moment later. "This is Lacus Clyne, speaking from the Chimera Gundam." Randolf heard one of his soldiers choke over his secondary channel.

"Siegel Clyne's daughter?" Randolf gasped, shocked. He had no idea what was going on. What was such a dedicated peacemaker like Lacus Clyne...possibly the most beloved girl in all the PLANTs...doing out here in the desert? Talking to him no less. From the cockpit of an enemy mobile suit. "How do I know it's you, 'Miss Lacus'? It seems likely to me that this is an attempt to throw us off guard."

His video communications screen blinked to life. Randolf's jaw dropped. It was Lacus Clyne, or else a clone of her...but clones did not exist...so it must have been Lacus. "Miss Lacus...Lacus...Lacus...Miss Clyne." The voices of his command echoed tinnily along his other communication lines. Everyone knew who Lacus Clyne was...she'd helped stop the last war at Jachin Due and had played a major part in brokering peace between the PLANTs and the Earth afterwards. And even before that she had been one of the most wildly popular pop singers in all the PLANTs...and...to the younger generation...the most eligible and desirable girl around. There likely wasn't a Coordinator over the age of two that did not know of Lacus Clyne and all the things she had endured and done for the PLANTs. "Miss Lacus...what are you doing here?" Randolf replied, fingering his prized white moustache in surprise.

Lacus Clyne, dressed in her custom pink Celestial Being flight suit, looked back at the ZAFT commander through the video communications screen. He was an older man...perhaps in his late fifties or early sixties, but still quite vigorous by even a casual estimation. Coordinators did live longer than Naturals so he was only in middle age. A sun browned face lined with worry; he had short white hair and a magnificent white bushy moustache like the one her father used to have. Pale green eyes studied her intently, looking for some deception. "I'm here to stop this situation from escalating out of control." She replied.

"You certainly have some explaining to do!" Randolf cried. "Why did you attack and destroy one of my patrols? You hate the idea of war and fighting, Miss Lacus. I know you do."

"You are right, I do. And so does the pilot of the Divinity Gundam, Kira. He hates war just as much as I do." Lacus replied.

"That would be the Kira Yamato who contacted us initially? He's with you?" Randolf asked. Lacus nodded as the Chimera Gundam gently landed, the machine holstering both beam rifles on its hips. Randolf walked his ZAKU closer until the two machines were standing within easy voice talking range, if either of them had wanted to open their cockpits to the merciless sun.

"Yes, but right now we need to be focusing on the situation which confronts us. Kira destroyed your patrol, though he did leave the pilots unharmed. He only did so because they were killing fleeing soldiers. We aren't here to fight the PLANTs, commander. We also aren't here to fight the Earth Alliance. We plan to fight the aggressors. The people who try to spread the war. Who created it."

"So you are fighting the Alliance then?" One soldier cut in, confused, even as the angel-winged Divinity Gundam settled to the ground nearby.

"No. We are fighting the war itself. The tendency for wars to escalate. The people who would bring death to the helpless and suffering to the undeserving. The people who would use nukes...or any weapon of mass destruction." Lacus refuted.

"That still sounds a lot like the Alliance to me." Randolf replied. "But if you aren't with the Alliance and you aren't with us...which side are you on, Miss Lacus?"

"I am currently on the side of peace...where I have always tried to be."

"That is a very good answer...for the diplomat's table. Out here on what may soon be a battlefield, I find those words less than sufficient. You have admitted to attacking and destroying ZAFT troops, Miss Lacus. Or at least condoning the actions of one who did. I find it quite odd that a person such as yourself would be way out here in the middle of the desert for no reason at all. Don't you think you are acting a little suspicious?" Randolf told her. Lacus looked a bit taken aback.

"You don't believe me? Do you think I'm a fake or an imposter?"

"No...I know you are the real Lacus Clyne. I was a very casual acquaintance of your father's...I went to your house once, you probably don't remember, you were very young...but you are unmistakably that same girl. But you've been out of view for quite a while, Miss Lacus. Long enough that I cannot help but worry that your thinking may have been influenced. Maybe even coerced."

"Coerced? By who?" Lacus demanded indignantly. Randolf frowned. She was getting very defensive...a trait unknown to the Lacus Clyne of his experience, who was quite open and frank at all times.

"By whoever is in those other mobile suits out of sight beyond the dunes there. Maybe even by that man in the cockpit of the machine you call the Divinity Gundam. I don't know. I know you were accused of treason in the last war, Miss Lacus and I did not believe it when I heard it. I was glad when the charges were proven to be unfounded. But I cannot deny that the seed of the possibility was planted in my mind. And this situation is nurturing that seed something fierce." Randolf replied, his voice cooling. He hit a macro key on his keyboard, sending a text only message to his command, telling them to remain alert. This was beginning to smell like a bait and lure trap. He and his wingman were very exposed out on the dune top.

"Commander Randolf. I assure you that my words and my thinking are entirely my own. How can I prove that to you?" Lacus answered, staring at him so sincerely that he couldn't help but give her a chance. "I only want to prevent violence and bloodshed as much as possible. Talking can resolve this problem and the war...if only people would give it a chance." Lacus continued.

"Fine...exit the cockpit of your Gundam and come over to us. Tell Mr. Yamato to power down his Gundam as well. And tell your friends back in the dunes to come forward as well, with weapons powered down as well. Then we can talk and I'm sure we can get this whole thing straightened out good and proper." Randolf ordered. Lacus thought for a moment and nodded.

"Very well." Lacus said. Randolf watched on the screen as she shifted position. His keen eyes noted every detail, including what could have been the accidental brush of a hand against a macro switch as she struggled with the tight cockpit confines. Could have been. Would have been, maybe, if a slurry of high caliber shells hadn't screamed out of the sky behind his position and ploughed into his wingman's ZAKU, chewing through the back armor and blowing his friend of twenty years into blood and scraps of meat right there on the secondary screen before detonating the ZAKU in a thunderous flash of light and sound which threw Randolf's own ZAKU down like a rag doll. Unable to get the image of that almost casual brush of a hand against a switch out of his mind. The signal switch which could send any one of a hundred signals. Including an attack signal to waiting forces around the trap he was now convinced he had allowed himself to be lured into. The bait had been perfect. She was, after all, not a fake. She was after all...a traitor! The hardest kind of foe to face...because you never wanted to admit they could exist.

"Ambush!" Kira yelled, only now noticing a blood red mobile suit with demonic wings and a glowing green orb in its chest as it stood on the dunes nearly ten miles away. "All Celestial Being forces, level one battle stations!"

"All teams...it's a TRAP! IT'S A TRAP! Fight for your lives! DAMN YOU LACUS CLYNE!" Randolf shouted, clawing his way back to full consciousness and rolling the ZAKU to its feet.

Lacus instantly lashed out at the accusation, igniting a beam saber, and severing the head and arms from Randolf's ZAKU with a single impossibly fast slash, leaving the ZAFT mobile suit to crumble to the ground in four separate pieces.

"If I wanted to kill you." Lacus sighed, tears welling up in her eyes. "I would have impaled your cockpit, instead of severing your arms and head. Now, please retreat."

"So." Randolf scowled, as one of the surviving ZAKUs picked up the remains of his machine and began to fall back. "You're a traitor, but you're letting me live...I'll make sure to kill you when next we meet."

"No! I didn't betray the PLANTs! I don't even know who attacked us!" Lacus shrieked, frightened, angered and totally flat footed by the sudden attack, which had come from nowhere.

"I don't believe you!" Randolf retorted, out of weapons but not communications range. "You sold us out to the Earth Forces. Lured us out of Gibraltar and into this heinous trap."

"No! This is a mistake! I didn't set you up. I did not want this to happen! I want there to be peace." Lacus protested, her anger slowly rising. Randolf spit back at her, not caring that he was only streaking his own screen.

"The peace of death is all you desire! I can see that plainly now! I swear, Lacus Clyne...I swear I will pay you back in full for this treachery! If need be I will haunt you to your dying day! I WILL HAUNT YOU LACUS CLYN...!" Randolf was suddenly cut off in a blizzard of static. The blood red mobile suit seemed to appear out of nowhere, drawing a beam sword, cutting the ZAFT suit in half and then kicking in the chest as it fell, sending the now mangled torso tumbling through the sand for a few hundred yards.

"No..." Lacus trailed off with a sob, even as Lexi, the Excalibur's advanced AI, took control of the Chimera Gundam, quickly guiding it back to the ship.

Wasting no time, everyone quickly boarded the Excalibur, before more enemies...either ZAFT, Earth Forces, or someone else, could show up to prolong a fight which had already gone on for far too long, in everyone's opinion. They did pause long enough to check the shattered remains of the ZAFT force for survivors, but it was an unfortunately vain hope. The monstrously demonic mobile suit that Kira had noticed just before all hell broke loose brought almost total destruction upon the ZAFT forces. There were few mobile suits that still existed in pieces larger than the hood of a small car, each blasted apart by hundreds of rounds of high explosive shells and missiles, or melted by the unimaginable heat of multiple beam cannons and even hyper impulse beam cannons. The few mobile suits that were still mostly whole, such as Commander Randolf's destroyed ZAKU, which had only been cut in half and partially crushed, had then been set alight by incendiary weapons and were slowly melting into pools of molten metal. The heat was too intense to approach any closer than ten meters.

The scale of the damage was totally unnecessary. Mobile suits that were plainly destroyed had been shot up like tin cans apparently just for the fun of it. It reminded everyone of the attack on Panama during the First Bloody Valentine War.

"I don't think any of us is happy about how this war has already gone. However, such statements are rapidly becoming so obvious they almost feel banal. None of us want this war yet here it is, so we're going to have to deal with it as best we can. I personally think the battles at Pearl Harbor, Gibraltar and elsewhere up to now have been nothing but preludes to the real war. We're still in the very first stages of the war...all sides involved are still finding their footing and re-establishing their strengths in order for the serious fighting later on. I know that is a bit heartless...to count the horrendous fights at Pearl Harbor and Gibraltar as nothing but preliminaries, but I don't see how else we can look at them. So far there have only been small scale battles involving perhaps a hundred mobile suits all told in any one battle."

"The Earth Forces aren't the only ones who are gearing up for a different sort of war...most of the rumors I've been hearing up here are obviously panic stirred gossip but some things I feel we have to take more seriously. ZAFT is buying up lots of new mobile suit designs...opening up the defense market to civilian contractors was really a good move for them...competitiveness amongst the companies has led to quite a few advanced designs...a few of which I'm sure you already encountered in the desert. I hear ZAFT is working on a few more nasty surprises like the Gugnirs and a really super secret project of some sort going on in one factory...I don't know what it is but anything soaking up nearly forty percent of the defense budget can't be something friendly." Andrew Waltfeld replied through the communications screen, he was currently up in the PLANTs, acting as an undercover agent. Everyone paused a moment at that last revelation.

"Forty percent of the entire defense budget?" Athrun exclaimed, shocked. "Do you have any idea how much funding that is?"

"I don't have the exact figures...the funding is top secret as well, goes through all kinds of dead drops and random transfers as I'm sure you can appreciate...but I'd say this single project, whatever it may be, is soaking up around twelve billion dollars a month. And costs for it have been going up every month since we got wind of it...whatever it is must be one hell of a package...but there is no evidence of a GENESIS level construction project anywhere within the PLANTs either. So as to what it is...that's anyone's guess." Waltfeld responded, looking more than a little nervous. It was never a good thing to know a potential enemy was whipping up one hell of a big bad something and you didn't even have the slightest clue as to what it was. That kind of lack of knowledge could lead to things getting very messy to say the least.

The ZAFT patrol was picking it's way lightly through the forest...well as lightly as a pair of BuCUE's could anyway, which was surprisingly stealthily, the big four legged machines managed to move through the thinly spaced trees with a minimal amount of damage, crushing only the occasional bush and knocking only a few limbs from their trunks. Of course it helped that the undergrowth down in the valley was much lighter than the near jungle that carpeted the slopes, which did a much better job of hiding the stationary and in some cases prone Strike Daggers and Windams that made up the 15th detached mobile division of the Earth Forces armed forces special operations unit. Painted in forest camouflage colors and outfitted with the latest in stealth systems, the twenty-five mobile suit unit was one of the most elite the Earth Alliance could field, equivalent to the Moebius Zero squadrons of the First Bloody Valentine War. Each and every pilot in the 15th had at least two confirmed ZAFT kills, most of which had been made with mobile armors.

The unit as a whole had never participated in a losing engagement, though they had been out of rotation during the battle of GENESIS. After the lunar fleet was mostly wiped out by GENESIS they were one of the most veteran units in the entirety of the Earth Alliance Military. They were set up in ambush positions on both sides of the mountain valley, deep within the mountains of Northeastern Eurasia. However, for this mission they would not be ambushing a mere patrol...they were the advance unit for a major offensive that was due to be launched on the ZAFT prefabricated base that had been dropped from low orbit during the first few days of the war. The base had been sited, for unknown reasons, within a sheltered and isolated valley near the center of the range, near an abandoned and dug out mining facility. Tacticians had initially designated the base a supply depot, but an unusual amount of activity was noticed by observers. Far more troops and much more material was going into the base than was going out. Finally, an infiltration team had penetrated the base's security and learned the truth.

ZAFT had long possessed scale technology...a technology which utilized the vibration and motion of tiny scale like flanges on the bottom and sides of vehicles to propel them through water or soft sand or mud or the like. The technology was most famous in its utilization by the Lesseps-class land battleships, but ZAFT submarine carriers and lesser land ships also used the same system. However, until recently vehicles equipped with the technology had been limited to water or regions of very loose sediment...more firm terrain stymied the scale vibrations and slowed the vehicles considerably, even stopping them altogether in locations with lots of stone. But the team discovered that ZAFT scientists had managed to come up with an improved new scale system that worked on solid rock, even hard igneous rock like granite and basalt, much like the old system worked on water. Combined with massive drills and laser boring machines, massive transports had been built that could carry five mobile suits each comfortably under the ground to target points before bursting from the ground like deadly moles to unleash their deadly cargo. The Earth Alliance had no counter...the very idea of giant burrowing war machines was somewhat ludicrous even after their existence was verified...and so it was determined that the machines needed to be destroyed and the project halted before it could go any further before ZAFT could utilize either.

And of course it would significantly reduce ZAFT's forces in the area as well, making the diversionary assaults planned to coincide with the Australian Maneuver due to take place in two weeks time. The Australian Maneuver was the talk of the unit, like it was for pretty much the entire military. An offensive of the scale that the operation was rumored to be had not been seen for hundreds of years. Rumors said that entire divisions and fleets were being consolidated into one giant hammer to smash ZAFT right off their main base, Carpentaria. After this mission, the 15th was due to muster in India for that assault. They were going in at the head of the wave and they were looking forward to it. But first they had to provide yet another distraction...they would attack the base while another unit slipped in from the other side of the mountains and broke into the mines, stealing any data possible and leaving behind a man portable thermonuclear bomb. Once the bomb was in place the 15th would withdraw and let the ZAFT base and its tunneling machines go up in a huge atomic fireball.

The 15th's commander looked at his watch and compared it to the mission chronometer display of his Strike Crusader. Both were perfectly synchronized and both were indicating the same thing. Mission Go. He looked down at the valley...the ZAFT patrol was a good two kilometers away and receding...far enough away that they would not be able to immediately flank his unit. "All units...Go code. We want this loud and flashy. Keep their eyes on us...then we can watch the big time loud and flashy from the transports." He then opened a channel to the team across the base. "The raven flies at midnight." He radioed the code words that would start the team on its infiltration.

"The raven flies at midnight?" Athrun said, incredulous. "Who the hell makes up that sort of crap? Their dispatcher must be watching too many cheap spy thrillers." He was wearing the headset rig that had formerly belonged to the leader of the team he had intercepted two hours previously. The Excalibur was lying in wait, about half a day's hard hike away, though only five minutes flight time, hidden as well as a seventeen mile long, four mile wide, and one mile high warship could be in the mountains, underneath the veil of its phase cloak. Celestial Being had heard reports through Andrew Waltfeld that ZAFT was conducting a major buildup at this seemingly isolated base and so they had decided to drop by and see what was up.

_'Well, Captain Ramius decided...with a great deal of advice from Kira and Lacus.'_ Athrun thought with a mental sigh and shake of his head. He respected the good captain...her survival record was impeccable, something he always found reassuring in a commander, but she had her faults too. One of which was a humanitarian streak wider than her ship which synched perfectly with the ideals of Kira and their shared lovers. She was a crusading idealist in Athrun's opinion, always spouting off about trust and working together and a bunch of other bullshit that would have been real nice to listen to before the war broke out, when it might have actually made a difference.


	61. Prisoners

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 61**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

Kira's conviction was that what Celestial Being was doing really was in the best interest of humanity. No situation was too grim, no battle too hopeless for him to intervene in. He often flew from battle zone to battle zone to battle zone, desperately trying to save as much of the world as he possibly could. Though it pained them to see Kira pushing himself so hard, Cagalli, Hope, Lacus, Mayu and Murrue had little time to worry. While the love of their lives risked his neck and their hearts on a daily basis on the ever shifting battlefields, they spent each day sequestered for long hours in a conference room aboard the Excalibur, holding press meetings via teleconference and meeting with supporters of the peace efforts both worldwide and in space in a similar manner. They was risking something far more precious to their mission than just their life...they was risking their good image with the leaders of the Earth and the PLANTs, who were, as a majority, behind the continuation of the war as it currently was, unlike last time.

Lacus Clyne was still immensely popular and her words carried a great deal of weight with a generation that had grown up idolizing and trusting her, but she could only do so much from the Earth aboard the Excalibur. Words did not have as much impact when delivered from a TV screen and it was much harder to get the depth of her concerns across through a communications line. Things were much worse on Earth, where the government reacted with nearly violent action against Celestial Being's broadcasts, jamming them whenever possible and starting their own public rallies against the private armed organization. There were even terrorist incidents in which people who supported Celestial Being were killed with police standing by, doing nothing. It was depressing, even to Lacus's nearly indomitable spirit. But whenever she felt down, either Kira or Cagalli were there to lift her up again, just like she was always there to calm them after the nightmares that were returning with greater frequency and greater impact every night.

The Divinity Gundam looked up, almost with dread as dozens of drop pods came pelting down through the atmosphere like giant glowing red hailstones. Barely five days had gone by since the Excalibur had arrived at Gibraltar for a complete refit, and as a result, the massive warship was temporarily unable to fight. The Divinity Gundam had been out on a recon patrol when the drop pods had been sighted, and the angelic machine was now screaming back towards the base, its wings of light brilliantly flaring as the blood red glow of Trans-Am lit up its armor.

The base was doomed and everyone knew it. Celestial Being barely had a full division emplaced at Gibraltar...and more than half of that was green troops. At the moment, fifty ZAKUs, twenty Murasames, ten Strike Daggers, ten Tauruses, five Freedom LPTs and five Freedom CGUEs defended the base, a total of only 100 mobile suits. Kira quickly scanned the drop pods, horrified to discover that the number of ZAFT mobile suits was at least 500...plus what ever infantry they chose to land. ZAFT infantry would be even more of a nightmare than their mobile suits.

Mobile suits went after big targets...infantry was a tertiary target at best. But ZAFT infantry...who were more like special forces soldiers, in terms of ability and training, would decimate their Celestial Being counterparts. Normally, ZAFT wouldn't dare to attack any of the bases held by Celestial Being, but with the fact that the private armed organization currently had only a few thousand members in total, only 500 of which were stationed at Gibraltar, the base was an obviously vulnerable target.

ZAFT hadn't employed many infantry attacks during the First Bloody Valentine War, but they wanted to reclaim this base...formerly one of their main strategic Earth bases, as quickly and efficiently as possible. Mobile suits were excellent at taking and holding ground. But they couldn't make an invasion solely by themselves...they'd run out of power or ammo eventually and be forced to retreat.

"Fuck." Kira muttered, as an all too familiar winged warship descended through the clouds, the bow of the ship aimed directly at the base as it followed the drop pods. "That's the Minerva."

A pair of reddish-blue beams of indescribable power...focused anti-matter particles...vomited forth from the Minerva's twin Tannhäuser cannons in explosions of light and sound. Less than a second later the Minerva vibrated and rocked backwards as dozens of anti ship missiles, two high caliber rail gun shots and four beams of intense heat energy joined the Tannhäuser blasts in flying towards the base.

The Tannhäuser blasts impacted first, a full twenty milliseconds ahead of the Tristan beam cannon blasts and almost a half second ahead of the Valiant shots...two seconds ahead of the missiles. The shots from both Tannhäusers washed through the huddle of vehicles and mobile suits on the ground like a blast of superheated steam through an ice sculpture, destroying ninety percent of the gathered forces in the blink of an eye. Not diminished in the slightest, the beam continued on to strike the base dead center. Positron particles reacted with their electron counterparts, ripping matter apart in a reaction of such intense power as to render nuclear weapons completely laughable.

The two Tannhäuser beams fully penetrated the seventy-five feet of concrete, steel and phase shift armor to the primary factory chamber and then continued on to burn through several cranes, two complete ZAKUs and four incomplete Freedom LPTs before finally impacting the bottom level and dissipating in a tremendous explosion of superheated air and secondary blasts from ignited fuel, severed electrical connections and damaged munitions. Before the blast wave had even struck the workers on the floor of the factory areas, the Tristan beams had followed the path of the Tannhäuser into the factory. Diverging slightly, each of the four beams went a slightly different path, burning through mobile suits, workstations, machinery and worst of all, power generators, which went up like bombs, some of the generators leaving clouds of glowing GN particles hanging in the air after their destruction.

With a thunderous explosion that blew leaves off trees more than five miles away, and a flash of light that drowned out the sun for nearly ten full seconds, the entire middle level of the base disintegrated in fire and rubble and smoke. Fire spread rapidly throughout the base, touching off fuel supplies and ammunition dumps in a continuing string of blasts, each which made the surrounding area visibly quiver. Structural integrity strained far beyond all tolerances, the top floors of the base broke up and crashed down into the middle levels, collapsing the floor and driving the whole multi-thousand ton mass of wreckage into the lower levels of the base and storage levels, utterly and irrevocably ruining the Freedom LPT and ZAKU production lines and demolishing a vast majority of mobile suit hangers in the base. Finally, the thousands of tons of debris slammed into the Excalibur's MCPS armored hull, causing the massive warship to violently shudder, but leaving the vessel completely undamaged.

"What the fuck is going on up there?" Murrue yelled, as her warship shuddered around her.

"The entire base has collapsed!" Lacus replied, even as Cagalli brought the Excalibur's engines to life, the massive dagger-shaped warship slowly rising through the debris of the base.

"Excalibur!" Kira's voice suddenly crackled through the communications line. "Please come in!"

"We're here, Kira." Lacus answered. "What's going on up there?"

"ZAFT has decided to be stupid!" Kira snarled, transforming the Divinity into its mobile suit mode while unleashing his DRAGOON units and firing beam blasts at any and all enemy mobile suits. He wasn't trying to kill his enemies, but his rage was slowly beginning to take hold, and a few of the blasts from his DRAGOON units did end up piercing the cockpits of the attacking ZAFT machines.

The first Celestial Being forces to arrive in response to the sudden attack were not mobile suits, but a wing of forty-four X-02A Wyvern superfighters. These Wyverns were mounted with detachable weapon modules based on the primary weapon systems of the original Freedom Gundam. In addition to the standard heavy beam machine guns and missile bays of a normal Wyvern, each of these ones mounted two plasma cannons overslung on the wings and a pair of rail guns underslung on the belly.

Piloted by the most experienced fighter pilots Celestial Being had to offer, the Wyverns came screaming into the battle zone in perfect formation, flying wingtip to wingtip in a two level wave, flying barely meters above the ground below them. As one person, all the pilots opened fire at once and held down the triggers for all they were worth.

"The landing sites have been secured." One of the ZAFT pilots announced.

"Launch the Gungnirs!" The captain of the Minerva ordered. "It's time to finish this."

The bottoms of the modified Laurasia-class ships opened, the ships having been placed in orbit above Gibraltar for this attack. Nine large pods were deployed from each of the ships, quickly descending upon Gibraltar.

A GINN loaded the final EMP caster into the Gungnir. "Right. Caster 12 is primed." The pilot said. "Now to–"

Suddenly, the last GINN covering him exploded. The pilot swore. He had to activate the Gungnir now. The GINN moved towards the Gungnir's control console. The GINN's quickly typed the activation code into the console. With the final Gungnir activated, the count down on all the Gungnirs started.

Thirty short seconds later, the Gungnirs fired, each releasing a powerful wave of energy. The waves spread out, consuming the entire area. The ZAFT mobile suits were unaffected but more than half of the Celestial Being machinery, save one vital warship and its own compliment of mobile suits, weren't so fortunate. The EMP waves fried the circuitry of the machines and computers. From tanks and gun emplacements to mobile suits, to the Gibraltar Base itself. The mass driver overloaded, sending a massive surge through the track, tearing the entire thing apart.

The Divinity Gundam, having been in the center of all nine of the now converging EMP blasts, was quickly overwhelmed by the unexpected amount of power. The angelic machine automatically rerouted all of its power to the EMP shielding systems, causing the DRAGOON units to quickly return to their docks on the Divinity's wings, even as the machine itself dropped out of Trans-Am, the wings of light vanishing and the thrusters going silent as the machine's MCPS armor reverted to the dull grey of its powered down state. In the cockpit, Kira Yamato snarled as he quickly merged with his machine, while using his more god-like abilities to reduce its size to that of an average human. An instant before the Divinity had completely powered down, Kira somehow managed to reactivate the hyper deuteron nuclear reactor and the holoshroud, surrounding the machine's armor with his own vestige. Finally, the amethyst-eyed man let out a mental sigh, closing his eyes as he quickly plummeted towards the ground.

The reinforced steel door sprung open with a shriek of metal on metal and four large and heavily armed soldiers charged into the room. They grabbed Kira by the upper arms and hustled him out of the cell. They didn't quite rough him up in the process...but they weren't gentle either and he got the impression that if he'd resisted even slightly they would have been more than glad to make him regret it. He did not resist in the slightest...he thought he could probably take out the four who grabbed him...they weren't the most alert people he'd seen. But they had lots of friends out in the hall...at least eight more guards were standing around with fingers on triggers or metal batons hefted in hand. Them he could not take. The guards did not waste time...without even saying a word he was dragged, or to be more accurate; carried down the hall and into a small room equipped with cameras hanging from the ceiling and an automated gun projecting from the wall.

The sentry gun tracked him closely...the barrel looking big enough to fit his thumb into. Something else to remember...this place was probably well equipped with similar sentry guns...it wouldn't be a good idea to go blindly running around corners in here. Athrun was hustled through another door into what looked like a dungeon, with a metal table and four metal chairs all bolted to the ground roughly in the middle. A plush armchair faced the bolted down chairs across the table. A small wooden table well stocked with water bottles stood at the side of the armchair. Athrun was pushed into one of the two chairs in the center of the room and was handcuffed arm and leg to the chair. The guards left, except for two who stood to either side of the door, watching him coldly. Athrun looked around the interrogation room.

The chair to his right held Shinn Asuka, and Athrun could already tell that his enemies not only wanted to keep them alive, they wanted them relatively unhurt as well...although that did bode ill for the reasons behind the generosity, such as it was.

Within minutes the guards were back in force, dragging Kira. The amethyst-eyed man looked slightly worse for the wear...he too had also not struggled but the guards seemed to regard him with a special sort of loathing. The guards indicated their displeasure at handling Kira by shoving him as roughly as possible, causing him to bang himself up more than a little as they secured him ruthlessly to the chair between Athrun and Shinn. Both Athrun and Shinn's restraints were tight enough to be uncomfortable, but Kira's were locked so tightly that they cut the flesh of his wrists and ankles.

"Not exactly how I wanted the day to turn out." Kira commented with a meager smile as the ZAFT guards, finally happy with his restraints, left the small cell which they had placed Athrun, Shinn and himself in. The door watchers glared at Kira fiercely but did not stop them from talking. "I'm sorry Athrun, Shinn...I was stupid to expect that my words alone could have gotten us out of this situation."

"Kira..." Athrun said sharply. Kira looked up from where he'd cast his eyes down in apology. "That isn't the issue right now. We can all agree on how stupid you were later. Preferably after we get out of here." Athrun ignored the amused snorts of the guards, who plainly didn't give much for their chance of escape. "I'm willing to forgive you...it wasn't all your fault. Once I can forgive and forget. If you put us into another situation like this through blind faith in your expectations of others...we'll have more than words. Much more."

"I understand. I can imagine that most everyone is pretty angry with me." Kira nodded. "No doubt there will be very harsh language directed at me once we escape."

"If that's all that's directed at you, you should count yourself very fortunate." Shinn muttered, and after a moment of silence, Athrun sighed. "I'm one of your best friends, Kira. And if I wasn't chained to this chair right now...I'd smack you. Hard...repeatedly. Think on that."

"Yeah, I get the picture. There's no need for threats." Kira retorted. "I'm not an idiot...I can figure out for myself that a lot of people are going to want to take a swing...or a shot...at me. I'll deal with it." Kira cranked his neck around to look Athrun in the eye. "If you need someone to blame you can blame me...sure. But smear some of the blame on yourself too. You're supposed to be more sensible than me, by all accounts. Why didn't you stop me?"

"Stop you? I would have had to punch your lights out to stop you." Athrun hissed.

"Then do that next time!" Kira snapped back.

"I will, thank you." Athrun paused. "Just remember you said that...I don't need every member of your little harem on my case just because you need a few ounces of common sense drilled fist-first into your head."

"Oh, like you've never needed that? What was with that little stunt in the Justice I heard about? I had asked you to protect Cagalli...I didn't ask you to blow yourself up. Or that trip to the PLANTs...even you said it was a stupid idea to go see your father. If Lacus and Andy hadn't rescued you, you would probably still be in jail or, more likely, dead by this point in time. I should have smacked you then, but you know me...always the nice guy." Kira shot back.

"Both of you, shut up." Shinn sighed, and an instant later, his head exploded into a shower of blood and gore for no apparent reason. The gory explosion spraying brainmatter through the room. Everyone's jaw dropped few seconds later, as the raven-haired man's head regenerated. "Ow." Shinn muttered, glaring heatedly at Kira. "That was quite unnecessary."

"Fine, that's how you want it, eh, Mr. Nice Guy? You got some nerve, bringing up stuff like that. Sure, I may have made some rash decisions...but they're nothing compared to the crap you do regularly. Don't talk to me about stupid ideas...you're the prince of stupid ideas."

"That's it...you are my friend, Athrun. My best friend. I can put up with a lot. But stop calling me stupid! I made my decisions because I thought they were the best thing to do at that time. If you've got a problem with that, we need to address it."

Athrun sighed heavily. "Let's just drop it...this isn't the time or the place." He said with a head shake. _'You brainless idiot.'_ He thought, and it wasn't until Athrun heard Kira draw a sharp intake of breath that he remembered that Kira was telepathic.

"Oh...I'm done. That is it! Once we get out of here...good and gone, all of us safe...I'm going to kick your ass, Athrun Zala. I've had it with everyone criticizing me for the things I've done! You aren't me...you don't know how hard making the decisions is. You may make hard decisions of your own that I don't understand...but I don't shove them in your face all the time!"

"Whatever, Kira. Personally, I'd really like to see you try to kick my ass, and frankly, I really don't think you can."

"We'll see about that."

"We will, won't we?"

They were cut off mid-argument by the sound of a man chuckling in honest amusement. They both looked around to the door, where a middle aged man with a thick mane of slightly curly black hair stood casually in the door. The man wore a business suit of fine make and carried a metal briefcase easily in one hand. "Teenagers and their tough talk. It never fails to amuse me...you always have to talk so much shit before you really get down and dirty and into the fight. An interesting psychological phenomenon but not currently relevant...you two have far more to worry about than a fist fight that will probably never take place."

"And who the fucking hell are you?" Kira spat, still very pissed off. It felt good to let his anger flow for once...usually he kept it under a fairly tight rein. It wasn't something he wanted to do often but right now his patience was gone. Maybe fighting wasn't the way to solve most problems...but some things just couldn't be resolved without fighting for them.

"My name is Timothy Vagne. Around here I am better known as Terrible Tim. For reasons which should become rapidly evident to you. I am the interrogator in charge of extracting every last scrap of potentially vital information from the two of you...before you are turned over to the science division for experiments. You two are very, very valuable intelligence assets...there is much that Mr. Hibiki can tell us about the workings of Orb and the Excalibur and an equal volume of things Mr. Zala has inside his head regarding the Celestial Being forces. I expect to be seeing a lot of you two...both together and individually...over the next few days or weeks. I certainly hope for the former...if you force me to take weeks to extract what I want to know...well, I'm Terrible Tim. I'll do terrible things to you." The man replied casually.

"Unlike most of the interrogators here, I prefer a more personal touch. The others utilize the talents of the guards...such as they are. But I find that people are much more willing to talk when their words actually might stop the blows of the man hitting them, rather than be forced to trust that they will appease someone slightly detached from it all. And the same applies to the more esoteric torture techniques as well...all of which I am sure I will be introducing to you three. You strike me as the sort who are loyal unto the end to their friends, their ideas and their morals. Too bad the rest of the world is not like you two, eh?"

"So you're going to try to torture information out of us...surely you know that is pointless. We certainly won't tell you anything. You must have studied us a little...you know my birth name after all. I find it difficult to believe that anything, even a casual perusal of our lives, would indicate that I...much less Athrun or Shinn, would be at all cooperative, no matter what you do to us." Kira said icily.

"There is truth in what you say. But it never hurts to try. Well...it never hurts me." Tim replied with a sadistic smile. "After all, we won't know what stimulus it takes to crack your defiant shell until it actually cracks and you spill everything I want to know, will we? And, distasteful as it is to an artist like myself, if you do prove as resilient as you think you are...why I can merely arrange for a special joint session with your lovers, Mr. Hibiki...maybe your tongues would loosen when it is them who is hooked up to the electric chair, hmm?"

"You would _not_ want to do that." Kira, Athurn and Shinn said very firmly and in perfect unison.

"Oh...pray tell, why not?"

"Because if you hurt even a single hair upon their heads..." Kira snarled. "I would completely forget myself and _kill_ you where you stood."

"And if he didn't, we would." Athrun and Shinn added, their voices deadly serious.

"You might find it hard to accomplish my death while chained to your chairs like you currently are."

"If you really believe that these chains would stop me if you hurt Lacus..." Kira trailed off, shaking his head in pity.

"Hmph." Tim shrugged, recovering as much poise as he could...he wasn't used to being so comprehensively threatened by his subjects...he was actually slightly intimidated by the monsters. They certainly made good threats...as someone who made threats for a living he could recognize quality when he heard it. "Why am I not dead now, then? I may not have touched them myself, but it is my understanding that the female prisoners underwent a group session with our very own clone of Lacus Clyne, whom we've honored by bestowing her with the name; Via Hibiki, several hours ago...and those who walk out of the clutches of Via tend to do so missing bits of themselves...and not in just the metaphorical sense."

"Lacus and the others weren't hurt...they were scared and confused but not hurt. Not even by the pain of others, which always hurts them as well. Honestly, she hasn't lived up to her reputation so far as I can see." Kira retorted calmly.

"How can you be so sure?" Tim growled wrathfully. To give in to this punk was the worst sin he could imagine. It was a fatal weakness no interrogator could ever afford to fall prey to. But there was no way that Kira Hibiki could possibly know of the outcome of the failed interrogation. Utterly no way.

"I would know if Lacus or the others were hurt. I'm certain of it." Kira replied.

"You sure?" Athrun muttered.

"Completely. I'm telepathic, after all, so if any of my lovers or the people around them were hurt I'd know about it. Trust me."

"Of course."

"Thanks."

"Okay...now that you're done male bonding. I suggest we get on with some metal to flesh bonding!" Tim snarled, angry at being ignored. He opened his briefcase and removed a heavy pair of gloves, which he donned, and then took out a heavy soldering iron, usually a tool he reserved for the endgame but right now; terrible things were going through his mind, very terrible things. He activated the tool and smiled tersely as he smelled the air heating up around the tip, even as he eyed Kira's hand meaningfully. "Where are the Excalibur and your remaining armed forces hiding? Where exactly is your primary base? Why can we not access the machine which you refer to as the Divinity Gundam? You have ten seconds to answer. Ten...nine...two...one...oh, out of time..." Tim strode forward. Kira just stared at him impassively, as did Athrun and Shinn. Tim grimaced. this wasn't any fun at all. He couldn't get into it if they didn't show fear. He gritted his teeth, this was not going to be a fun session.


	62. Victims

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 62**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

Kira Yamato yawned as he sat restrained in the interrogation room. His interrogator, one Timothy Vagne, was currently gouging out his left eye with a rusty spoon, but Kira was utilizing his more god-like abilities to completely block the pain, allowing him to don an unconcerned mindset.

"Are you done now?" Kira grinned as the interrogator wrenched the spoon from his left eye socket, severing the optic nerve, ripping the eye itself out and sending a stream of blood cascading down the young man's face. Tim's jaw dropped in disbelief as Kira's eye instantly regenerated, leaving the severed eyeball, which was now laying on the floor, and the blood on his face as the only signs of what had just been done. The amethyst-eyed man's grin grew even wider than before. "Not only am I immune to pain, I've also come to disregard most of my higher reasoning when angred, going so far as to ignore even the thought of preserving my own life. I can't even tell the difference between my waking moments and my sleeping moments any more. I haven't been able to do so for nearly a decade now. Everything is the same nightmare to me, the same living hell of suffering and delirium and captivity and anger and lust and denial. I am nothing more than a creature controlled by his own subconscious."

Lacus jerked awake, hands pressed to her head, her eyes full of tears she hadn't realized she'd shed. She'd been sleeping peacefully, or at least as peacefully as was possible in this horrible place. Ever since the first interrogation session she'd been left alone, but she wasn't sure why. It had been hours and hours, but it felt like days. Her captors had been kind enough to give her a few meals and, despite not needing the nutrients due to being a god, she'd forced herself to eat the unidentifiable slop so that she wouldn't be distracted by hunger. She'd done a lot of thinking and some singing, which her captors hadn't stopped her from doing. She'd even cried a bit, although she didn't let herself be depressed for long. Defeatism would only serve to help the enemy, not her. And she'd gone to sleep, she'd been having a nice dream too; one with lots of Kira and Cagalli in it.

It had almost been like they'd been in the room with her, close enough to touch and smell, and then the dream had come to an end with the sound of a single gunshot that seemed to fill the entire world. An ocean of grief and sorrow and loss poured out of nowhere and crashed into her, sweeping her away, and then she'd awoken, her hair mussed, clothing wrinkled, eyes full of tears and one of the most terrible headaches she'd ever had. Her entire head was ringing with the sound of the gunshot, it was as if someone was playing an echo at maximum volume right next to her ears. Something had happened; something horrible, she knew it. Somebody had died. Sombody she knew. But who? And how did she know with such certainty? She couldn't answer those questions. No matter how much she thought about it.

Kira jumped in his bed as if electrified, rolling off the tiny cot and slamming hard into the concrete floor. His cell was bare of filth but it had a very musty atmosphere. Dust seemed to fall from the ceiling like snow, making it very difficult for him to breathe steadily and evenly without coughing.

Lacus jumped slightly as her vision suddenly flashed to a blinding white, before clearing a few seconds later. As Yumi's vision cleared, the cell door hissed open, a small canister bouncing into the room before expelling a thick green-colored gas. Yumi quickly moved away from the small object, but the gas filled the room within only twenty seconds, and after another thirty seconds, Yumi took a breath, the gas stinging her eyes and making them water profusely, blurring her vision. As Yumi rapidly blinked her eyes, trying futilely to clear her vision, a group of soldiers hurried inside, quickly hustling her out of the cell and into a small interrogation room, where they quickly bound her to a chair.

Kira scowled angrily as a group of soldiers led him into a small room with a single window, but he was both horrified and infuriated when he looked through the one-way glass. Yumi, who if not perfectly well, despite being completely naked and with teary, gas irritated eyes, was still very much alive. She was sitting in a chair behind a desk in plain view of the window, her arms and hands bound to each armrest, her ankles bound to the legs of the chair in which she sat.

One of the soldiers displayed an injection gun and several hard plastic vials, a bright, intense pink-violet liquid swirled inside the vials, twenty milliliters of it per vial, and there were six vials. "One hundred percent pure Pink Passion, street value of almost ten thousand dollars per vial. I'd hoped to be able to save them for the final confrontation, so we could all go out with a proper bang! Hold her head steady!"

"HEY! What the fucking hell do you think you're doing?" Kira roared, taking a step forward, before being roughly shoved back, assault rifles leveled at him from either side and behind.

"What am I doing, Mr. Yamato? You don't get out into pop culture much, do you?" The soldier inside the interrogation room chuckled as he loaded the first vial into the injector gun. "I'm about to give your wife the most sublime ten minute continuous orgasm of her entire life. Pink Passion, as I'm sure you are aware, is an illegal drug manufactured by Celestial Being, this drug overstimulates the pleasure centers in the brain, so that the slightest sensation, no matter what it is, releases massive amounts of endorphins and other pleasure inducing chemicals. With twenty milliliters of one hundred proof Pink Passion in her system, I could scalp your wife with a blunt, rusted hacksaw and she'd scream for more! I don't believe I can stress to you enough how terribly addicting this brand of chemical pleasure is, Mr. Yamato. Strong men and women, and even Coordinators, have spiralled down into never ending addiction on hits of Pink Passion that were much smaller and much less pure than the one I'm about to give your wife. I'd rate her chances of being able to keep control over herself to be pretty much nonexistant."

"You people are sick." Kira spat, his voice now dripping with anger and hatred, his eyes alternating between their normal amethyst color and a deep, blood red. "You really don't understand me, Celestial Being, or my lovers at all. Nothing you can do, no matter how horrible it is, will get an ounce of cooperation from any of us."

"Kira..." Yumi spoke up, her throat cracking with dry fear. The soldiers all leaned towards her avidly, anticipating her begging for mercy. "If you do as these bastards say, I will never forgive you! Celestial Being...DOES NOT...negotiate with asshooles like them!"

Kira hung his head, biting down on his lip so hard he drew blood, but he kept his gaze locked with Yumi's. "I'll always love you, Yumi, no matter what. We'll get through this." Kira promised.

"I know." Yumi closed her eyes briefly and then smiled at him. "They just can't understand..."

"And YOU people call US crazy!" The soldier snarled angrily, pressing the injection gun to Yumi's throat and squeezing the trigger. There was a quiet hiss as a blast of air opened a pore in her skin and then shot the pink-violet liquid into her bloodstream. Yumi closed her eyes again and shuddered, her entire body twisting in the chair as the drug mixed into her blood and started to be absorbed into her brain. The soldiers released her head and backed away with the injection gun. How could they be so calm even now! What the hell was wrong with these people! "Well, its too late to cry now...let it be on your head!"

"No. The blame here lies with you, and the man who told you to use the drugs as a method of coercion." Kira replied, tears blurring his vision unashamedly. "It is not mine nor Yumi's fault that you're a bunch of immoral bastards who stoop to using violence and disgusting methods like this because you are either too lazy or too stupid to use legal means of expressing your views! I cannot understand hating like you people hate. I find it hard to believe at times that we're even the same species."

"Shut up! You can't judge us, you damned Coordinator! This is a mission of redemption! You and your kind are all sinners...you deserve your fate, no matter how horrible it may be! There is no such thing as an immoral method for dealing with sinners!" A soldier retorted hotly, jabbing Kira in the gut with his rifle butt, hard enough to drive the breath from him and knock him to his knees. "Hah! Weakling!"

"Says a man hitting me when my arms are bound, my wife is held hostage and being tortured, I am unarmed, possibly with a concussion, and you are all wearing bulletproof armor and is carrying multiple advanced weapons?" Kira answered scathingly. "Yes, I am very weak, like that. And I'm damn proud of it!" Kira forced himself to keep his eyes on Yumi as she twitched and jerked in the chair, fighting her hardest not to let the drug induced pleasure overwhelm her, though her eyes were already half lidded and her breathing was becoming more like panting. Looking away would be giving these monsters what they wanted...a sign that they were breaking his will. He could NOT let them break his will...not with Yumi's example to follow! He would NOT look away...he would remember every horrid moment of this torment, and he would pay it back to them ten thousand fold, when he had the chance!

"Well, that didn't work out so well." One of the soldiers with an assault rifle commented petulantly. "That's an entire hit of good Pink Passion, wasted."

"Not even slightly!" The soldier with the injection gun retorted triumphantly. "He may not be willing to cooperate, still, but once the Pink Passion high wears off...ah, then we'll see what is what. The crushing black depths of depression of a Pink Passion low are enough to break any person, eventually. If the first dosn't do it, we'll hit her again. After the second dose wears off there is no way that she'll have any resistance left...she'd eat her own babies alive, if she had them, for a third hit...she'd do nything we asked of her."

"Wow, she's really getting turned on!" One of the soldiers commented, staring at Yumi.

"Naturally. With a concentrated dose of Pink Passion in her like that, she'd probably fuck that table if it grew a wang. Or hell, even if it didn't!" The soldier wielding an assault rifle stepped forward slyly, setting his weapon aside for the moment. He reached up for his helmet and unclapsed it.

"What are you doing?" Another soldier asked.

"I am not of a mind to waste a good Pink Passion hit. It has been almost three months since I last kissed a woman, and I'd like to go to heaven with a fresher memory than that. And since she's going to enjoy it anyway..." The soldier answered, removed his helmet, and revealing a pasty skinned, light green haired, blue eyed visage, with freckles and a crooked nose. Most likely a Natural parent of a first-generation Coordinator...only people who lived in space full time had complexions that white and pasty. This guy didn't even look to Kira like the sort that went outside much even in the PLANTs. "Normally the thought of making out with a Natural would be abhorrent, and it still is...I cannot understand how Mr. Yamato deals with such filth on an intimate basis...but I suppose I can swallow my disgust this one time." The soldier leaned towards Yumi from the side. "She's almost cute from this angle...look at her sweat and twitch...mmm, Pink Passion is so much fun, isn't it, Mrs. Yamato?" The soldier cupped her chin and turned her face to meet his, covering her lips with his.

Yumi's eyes flew wide open, and Kira shivered, because of the stark fury that he saw in them. He smiled a private, hard smile...these stupid bastards weren't thinking at all. He began gathering himself to move, rolling his shoulders back and forth to loosen his arms in their sockets. This was going to hurt, but pain was no longer a physical consideration of his. Just because the drug was forcing Yumi to enjoy the forced kiss didn't mean it was paralyzing her at the same time, or preventing her from taking actions of her own, and Kira knew better than anyone else alive that even the most overwhelming of pleasure sometimes couldn't stop Yumi from doing whatever the hell she wanted, whenever the hell she felt like it! She was just stubborn like that. Kira smirked as his keenly listening ears heard the sound of teeth biting into a soft, protruding flap of muscle and chewing their way through.

"FRUAAGGHHH! AGGHHHRA!" The soldier stumbled backwards, screaming incoherently and violently, with blood geysering from his mouth every time he opened his jaws. Yumi's mouth was stained with blood from the nose to the chin, and she continued to chew for several seconds before she swallowed the raw muscle. She couldn't help herself...despite the horror in her mind, it just tasted SO GOOD! She sincerely hoped nothing else would come into contact with her mouth...in her pleasure inebriated state, she was sure she'd eat just about anything and like it, despite how she wanted to faint and vomit. "Well...they were right...it did feel good..." Yumi mumbled distractedly.

"HOLY FUCKING SHIT!" The soldier with the knife staggered away from his compatriot, wiping bright, hot blood from his face shield. "She bit off his tongue and ate it!" Another soldier was making vomiting noises inside his helmet, and the rest, including the ones which had kept Kira restrained, were backing away, staring with shock and disgust at Yumi and their flailing, gagging, choking and especially bleeding companion. No one was paying the slightest bit of attention to Kira, at least at the moment, and it was then that he acted. The glowing purple seed dropped through his mind like a blazing amethyst gemstone, before detonating with the sound of five billion thunderbolts. Kira leapt to his feet in the same instant, throwing both shoulders back violently in a rolling motion that disloacted both arms at the shoulder. Tucking his feet up, he somersaulted forwards onto the desk, landing as his arms painfully slid back into their sockets, his bound wrists now in front of him.

Kira didn't waste a second, as the soldiers were already starting to react. He spun around like a top and round kicked the two closest soldiers right in the head, knocking one down to the floor and sending the other reeling back into the glass windows, spiderwebbing them with cracks. Kira then dived on the tongueless soldier, who was too busy screaming and bleeding to death from the mouth to resist as Kira stole his knife, reversed his grip and sliced his bonds apart. Dropping the blade for the moment, as it was useless against the soldier's armor, Kira instead grabbed up a set aside hand-held beam cannon, which he did not hesitate to turn on the still scrambling to react soldiers. It was over in a matter of seconds, sizzling purple plasma blasts, the same color as the molten rage in his eyes blasting off heads and scorching charred holes through torsos. Kira blasted the tongueless man in the head once he had a chance, ending his miserable cries. He had seriously considered turning the beam cannon on the vials of Pink Passion that had fallen onto the floor, but instead, he snatched them up and pocketed them, they might be useful at a later date.

Still racing against time, Kira snatched up the dropped knife and sliced it through the armrests underneath Yumi's arms, the leather bindings on her wrists being too risky a target given how much she was twitching and jerking, still fighting against her drugged mind with all her willpower. She was losing the battle, but then again, it wasn't really a battle that someone could win, unless they could manipulate their own mind and force themselves not to feel any pleasure at all, and Yumi could definitely not do that. Kira debated grabbing one of the assault rifles as he slung the beam cannon over his shoulders, the power pack at his waist and gathered Yumi up into his arms as gently as he could manage, before then sprinting for the hallway...it was high time that he showed these bastards just what sort of hornet's nest they'd kicked!


	63. Pink Passion, Crimson Revenge

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 63**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

Kira growled as he sit on the Excalibur's bridge, his lovers had un-merged, and were in the Excalibur's primary infirmary.

"This is a den of true evil." Kira spoke, his voice booming from the Excalibur's external loudspeakers. "Where people without morals take children kidnapped off the streets and orphanage wards of the Earth and cut them open to add surgical enhancements no human was meant to have in order to turn them into unstoppable super soldiers. It's a place where those children are subjected to a training regime so brutal and dehumanizing that the ones who survive have no memories of their lives before they came here and...worst of all...those who survive do not even view themselves as humans any more, but instead as machines, mere interface cards for the mobile suits built for them. I heard such tales of horror that I don't know if I can repeat them...I saw such things...things I never want to remember but can never forget for as long as I live." Tears started beading in Kira's eyes. "I experienced acts among the worst humans can inflict upon each other...observed people with such terrible psychoses that they cannot be allowed to further spread their taint to new people."

"What are you trying to say, Kira?" Meyrin Hawke asked from her position at the CIC.

"You all know my stance on war and killing." Kira replied. He paused for several moments. "Despite that, for once, I think that there are just some things that cannot be allowed to exist. If you encounter a rabid animal you try to capture it and get it medical attention. But if someone is going around and injecting animals with rabies and chemical warfare agents...and indeed, goes so far as to inject themselves to prevent capture...well, then there really is only one choice. They have to be put down before they can do any more damage. For the good of all. This is a situation like that. Please believe me, I don't want to kill all those people in there...all those children who never had the chance to know any better...but we don't have the resources to save them right now...and if we don't do something now, later they will just relocate and begin anew and we'll never be rid of them. So please, destroy this base. Try to leave the living quarters intact if you can...but destroy this base at all costs. The existence of a place like this cannot be tolerated by moral people such as ourselves."

Lunamaria Hawke, whom had taken the place of Lacus at the communications station, looked at Kira, she thought briefly and nodded once. If Kira Yamato felt a place had to be destroyed, then it should probably be damn well destroyed, in her opinion. Anything that could affect the merciful Kira Yamato like this was too terrible for her to want to consider. After a moment of complete silence, Kira began to give out orders "Activate the Lohengrin. Coordinate with the Gottfrieds and Valiants. Load all missile tubes with Wombat anti-ship missiles. I want those mountains gutted and I want it done properly."

"Activating the Lohengrin. Coordinating with Gottfrieds and Valiants. Loading all tubes with Wombats." Andy quickly replied from the weapons station. "Lohengrins one through five-hundred, target the factory mountain along with Gottfried one through two-hundred. Lohengrins five-oh-one through one-thousand, target the facility mountain, along with Valiants and missile tubes. Second volley targets will be Lohengrins one through one-thousand on the factory and facility mountains, and everything else on the storage mountain. Should a third volley be necessary, I will assign targets based on how the first two volleys went."

"Lohengrins activated and powering up, thirty seconds until they hit full power." Andy announced two short seconds later. "Gottfrieds and Valiants targeted and locked on. Missile tubes will be loaded in fourty seconds."

"The enemy has pulled back and is trying to regroup at the base of the factory mountain." Meyrin said.

"Like it will do them any good." Kira snarled.

"Turning two degrees starboard to put the enemy in the line of fire. Maintaining minus three degree axial tilt. Engines idling at full power, all auxilary power connected to weapons systems." Shinn Asuka announced from the helm.

"All communications lines are clear." Luna said. "The enemy is trying to jam us but their technology is much too primitive to do so properly. Enemy communications are 95 percent jammed. No hits on the long range radar...we're still the only ship in the area."

"Ten seconds remaining until all weapons ready, captain." Andy announced. "All targets are locked in and Lexi is standing by to alternate to the second volley targets. Five seconds to weapon readiness."

"Very well." Kira replied, before taking a breath and yelling. "All weapons, open fire!"

Reddish-blue beams of god-like destructive power vomited forth from 500 of the Excalibur's bow-mounted Lohengrin cannons in explosions of light and sound. Less than a second later the Excalibur vibrated and rocked backwards as millions of anti ship missiles, two high caliber railgun shots and another hundred beams of intense heat energy joined the Lohengrin blasts in flying towards the mountains housing the Allaince base. The Lohengrin impacted first, a full twenty milliseconds ahead of the Gottfried beams, almost a half second ahead of the Valiant shots, and two full seconds ahead of the missiles. The shot from the Lohengrins washed through the huddle of enemy vehicles and mobile suits like a blast of superheated steam through a butter sculpture, destroying ninety percent of the gathered forces in an instant. Not diminished in the slightest, the blast continued on to strike the mountain dead center. Positron particles reacted with their electron counterparts, ripping matter apart in a reaction of such intense power as to render nuclear forces laughable. The Lohengrin beam fully penetrated the forty feet of rock to the primary factory chamber and then continued on to burn through several cranes, two complete Strike Daggers and four incomplete Windams before finally impacting the far wall and dissipating in a tremendous explosion of superheated air and secondary blasts from ignited fuel, severed electrical connections and damaged munitions. Before the blast wave had even struck the workers on the floor of the factory chamber, the Gottfried beams had followed the path of the Lohengrin into the factory areas. Diverging ever so slightly, each of the four beam blasts followed a slightly different path, burning through mobile suits, workstations, machinery and worst of all, power generators, which went up like bombs. With a thunderous explosion that blew leaves off trees nearly three miles away, and a flash of light that drowned out the sun for a few seconds, the entire middile level of the factory mountain disintegrated in fire and rubble and smoke. Fire spread rapidly throughout the maintain, touching off fuel supplies and ammunition dump chambers in a continuing string of blasts that each made the mountain, as well as the ground within a half mile, quiver visibly. Structural integrity strained far beyond all tolerances, the top floors of the factory mountain broke up and crashed down into the middle levels, collapsing the floor and driving the multi-thousand ton mass of wreckage into the lower factory and storage levels, utterly ruining the Strike Dagger and Windam production lines and demolishing all mobile suit hangers in the mountain. Seconds before the upper levels collapsed, three mobile suits launched from their respective hangers.

"Are they ok?" Athrun Zala asked as he quickly walked into the Excalibur's primary infirmary nearly an hour later, he had been completely shocked and horrified when he saw the list of patients on the door; Cagalli Yula Athha, Hope Yamato, Lacus Clyne, Mayu Asuka and Murrue Ramius. He was good friends, not only with Kira, but his lovers as well, and he wanted to see if they would...or even could...answer, and if not, then asking Kira for an update. "Are you all...?"

"We're awake." The five women replied in unison, though their voices was very soft and odd sounding to his ears. They wasn't weak...tired maybe, but definitely not weak. They didn't sound like they was fighting off pain either, or even dealing with painkiller sedation medicines. "We all wish we weren't, but we can't sleep like this..."

"What's wrong?" Athrun asked worriedly, reaching out one hand to pull aside the bed curtain blocking Cagalli's bed so that he could see what the situation was. Kira's hand snatched out and caught him by the wrist unexpectedly, stopping him several inches short of the curtain. "Kira?"

"We...want privacy at the moment, Athrun. Even from you and Kira. Especially from you and Kira..." Cagalli's voice answered, it was even softer, and Athrun heard a sob, and then a groan. He shivered...he'd heard Cagalli groan like that before...but only when she and Kira, or more often, she and Lacus, didn't know anyone was watching them or around when they started their foreplay before sex. Small vocal cues like that were one of the first signs he listened for before suddenly opening doors on otherwise quiet rooms when he was visiting them unexpectedly...it would be incredibly embarassing to walk in on them while they were...well. Every living animal might have sex, but that didn't mean he wanted to consider two of his friends going at it.

Kira saw the puzzled and disconcerted expression on Athrun's face, and his heart sank. He and Cagalli had already gone over the situation, such as it was, with the doctors. He hadn't expected Athrun and the others to return from the PLANTs so soon though. Kira and Cagalli were still dealing with the raw facts themselves...bringing Athrun into the loop was going to make matters even worse. "I'm going to go talk with Athrun for a while. Do you guys think you'll be okay for a few minutes?"

"Don't...condescend us, you little sh-!" Hope snapped, but the insult was broken by another pleased, excited gasp, totally out of place for the grim, sterile infirmary surroundings. "We're not a little girls with skinned knees...we're much more aware of the situation than you are! We'll be...just fine. Not like we...have much choice, at the moment."

"Oh God, when will this feeling go away?" Murrue suddenly cried. "I've got this terrible itch and I can't scratch it! I still think that these metal restraints, not to mention the fact that Kira has disabled all of our powers; with the exception of our immortality and regeneration, is unnecessary!"

"Metal restraints?" Athrun was dumbfounded, unable to think of any reason a to why any of the five women would need to be confined to their beds by force, much less as to why Kira would need to take all of their powers, with the only exceptions being their regeneration and immortality.

Kira stepped out of the partioned area, dragging Athrun somewhat reluctantly behind him, keeping his hand on Athrun's wrist to make sure he didn't do something regrettably impulsive, like throw back the interior curtain to see what was wrong. This was something that needed explaining, not that the explanations would make anything less painful. Indeed, it made it more painful than just bearing witness to a broken limb or ugly wound...modern medicine had been equal to the healing of those types of injuries for centuries now, and now they didn't even leave scars anymore. However, when dealing with a brain affecting drug, a chemical weapon by any definition of the term, while the symptoms were known, they didn't manifest externally. The five women still looked the same as they always did, there was no outward sign that anything was wrong. But internally...Kira's eyes hardened anew. "Please, go over it again, in complete detail." Kira requested of the doctors.

"Very well, sir. The privacy act does make provisions for next of kin, especially in situations like this where the patient is no longer considered competent to make binding decisions for themselves." The male doctor replied, his tone professionally cool, though his expression was filled with sorrow and empathy. This wasn't the first time he'd had to explain the effects of a mind altering chemical to family and friends of a patient, but he'd never imagined that the patients he'd been explaining about would be the Queens themselves! How could anyone do something so clinically monstrous as to...he shook his head slightly...the family and friends needed him to be a doctor right now, not an enraged human being and citizen of Celestial Being.

"What does that mean! What the hell is...?" Athrun spoke up again, his tone heated. He shut up when Kira gave him a glance filled with pure suffering.

"Please, Athrun...just listen. There's no easy way to be told this." Kira implored. He nodded at the doctors. "Please continue."

"They have all been injected with a blood borne, mind affecting and altering substance called 'Spiffy' although it is more commonly known as 'Pink Passion' on the international drug trade." The male doctor stated, ignroing the appalled gasp from Luna and Meyrin. Clearly the Hawke sisters had some experience with the drug...with all the charity work they undertook after joining Celestial Being, he supposed it was almost inevitable they'd spent some time in various rehab centers, and the drug was fast becoming an endemic, so they wer likely to have some idea of what he was talking about. "Pink Passion is a form of stimulant, and it primarily affects the central nervous system, especially the parts of the brain responsible for the release of the neurochemicals responsible for the feelings of pleasure or happiness derived from physical or mental or emotional sensation. While affected by Pink Passion, a person literally feels intense pleasure from every tiny little thing, from breathing, to the feel of clothing, to the slightest touch by another person, roughly equivalent to the sensation granted by a sexual orgasm."

"Pink Passion is an unfortunately common, though expensive, recreational drug in use throughout the PLANTs, and to a lesser degree, on Earth. It is illegal everywhere in this solar system, even on Luna, which has legalized most other forms of recreational drugs. The reason for this is because Pink Passion is not just habit forming, like smoking or most other drugs, but instantly addicting, affecting the internal chemistry of the brain to in some ways _require_ the substance in order to continue functioning properly, and also because in even relatively small doses of one hundred to one hundred and fifty milliliters, it is fatal to humans, causing permanent nerve damage and overstressing of the heart and lungs, leading to cardiac arrest and death, or a persistent vegetative state. Obviously, with the relatively small dosage the Queens recieved, that isn't our current concern, despite the potency and purity of the dose they were forced to take." The man continued. His female colleague took up the explanation for a moment when he stopped for breath.

"In plain terms, sir, what we're dealing with in this case is a unpreventable dependency on the substance in order to sustain the pleasure receptors of the brain. The full extent of the damage is still unknown to us, but in near overdose scenarios somewhat like this one, patients have often experienced long term degradation of their ability to excite those pleasure sensors without utilizing more Pink Passion, with the problem growing worse even as it is temporarily assuaged by additional contact with the substance." The woman explained, somewhat awkwardly.

"Is there anything that can be done?" Athrun was swaying on his feet, stunned by the horror of what he was being told, his emotions a wild, formless storm inside him. He couldn't figure out how he was feeling...sad, angry, pitying, disbelief...it all was mixed up inside and nothing would present itself long enough for him to pick it out. He supposed he could just call the whole experience trauma.

"Well, the body will flush the drug from their brains through natural processes in about three weeks, give or take a few days." The male doctor replied. "After that point, the cravings and depression should fade somewhat. However, their brains have already been permanently changed, at least to the degree modern science can affect. The craving for more Pink Passion will be with them for the rest of their lives. It's a matter of personal willpower, and a constant battle against the depression and the inability to be like they were before this tragedy. In some ways you could compare it to suffering the loss of a limb, or other massive, permanent physical injury. They won't be able to live their lives the same way they did before the incident. Whether or not the inability to be the same is a major concern depends on the person. Some handle it better than others."

"The best thing you can do for them is be there to support them, unconditionally." The female doctor supplied. "This isn't a battle that anyone but those five can fight, but at the very least reducing outside sources of stress will help them stay on even footing with the cravings. Avoiding stressful situations is very important...when we're stressed, we want to seek out comfort to combat it. Their ability to feel comfort has been damaged, and the only way they'll ever be able to regain their full ability to comfort themselves, or be comforted by others, will only make the problem worse. Each additional hit they take will push them that much closer to absolute dependency on the drug, to the point where they literally will feel that they cannot live without it. If that occurs, they'll have to go to permanent inpatient care...they won't be able to live outside of a bed or unsedated."

"By stressful situations you mean what exactly?" Luna asked, studiously avoiding looking in Cagalli's direction with any of her senses.

The doctors looked at each other uncomfortably for several seconds. "Well, unfortunately, my medical responsibilites force me to say that any sort of political position is impossible, despite how I feel personally about their ability to handle themselves." The male doctor answered. "Even if I did not declare them medically unfit for duty right now, the courts would force me to do so later. I'd have to look at the letter of the laws, but I think they should still be able to remain as Queen, since that is a largely ceremonial position with few stressful responsibilities. But none of them can continue being Chief Representatives, or anything else that requires daily problem solving and personnel interactions. Any serious stress could cause a breakdown, with a possible suicide or self mutilation attempt, or even worse, an attempt to take another dose. Pink Passion is expensive and illegal, but someone with their personal resources would not have too much challenge acquiring some all the same."

"Piloting a mobile suit or taking part in combat, even from the bridge of a ship, is also impossible. It would be almost certain to cause a breakdown, with potentially fatal results, even if she did nothing but lapse into catatonia." The female doctor added. "I'll write up a list of non-stressing hobbies and activites that I would recommend them looking into filling their day with. No sports, no major physical activites, nothing that could cause potential physical injury. You'll have to control what they watch on TV or in movies, or what they look at on the networks. Anything which provokes extreme emotional reactions has to be avoided. In many ways, their situation has become that of a child, unable to take care of themselves. The mere fact that they will still feel capable of taking care of themsevles will provide a stress in and of itself...their physical capabilities and desires are unchanged, unlike what happens with most severe injury patients, it is merely their ability to deal with the side effects of their actions that has been compromised. Anger, frustration, sadness, fear, embarassment...any of those emotions and dozens more besides, could all trigger a breakdown with potentially fatal results."

"No sports or physical activities? No TV or internet, basically. No politics, no mobile suits or fighting...what's left in their lives!" Athrun complained bitterly. "How are they supposed to fight off depression if they can't do anything that they enjoy! They shouldn't have to live in fear like that!"

"This is our professional medical opinion, sir, I'm sorry." The male doctor replied, wincing slightly, now addressing both Athrun and Kira. He was very familiar with this sort of reaction from family and friends of patients. It was always like this...the complaining about the unfairness, the directionless anger, the bitterness, the very real feelings of helplessness. It made his heart feel just a little bit heavier each time he had to break news like this to people...it was the hardest part of being a doctor, giving bad news like this. "Whether or not the Queens follow our advice is up to them of course...we can't force them to listen, at least initially, though if they don't not listen, and end up having a breakdown that requires permanent hospitalization, then the choices will no longer be thiers. I cannot stress to you enough about the seriousness of this situation they are in...though they look and might even act fine, they are seriously injured. They won't want to admit it. They'll try to pretend everything is fine. I have seen it a hundred times or more. They'll act just fine...up until the moment they slice their wrists open or try to throw themselves off a rooftop. The self destructive impulses stemming from the depression are sudden and unpredictable. They'll need to be constantly watched, and they're not going to like that, which is more stress."

"You'll need to change some things around the places where they live and spend a lot of time. "No weapons or sharp implements can be left in a place that they can access alone. Someone needs to be with them, or at least within close visual range of them, at all times, especially during these first twenty one or so days while the drug flushes from their systems. Many addicts have problems with other drugs or binge eating and drinking, especially drinking alcohol, so you'll have to watch out for that as well. They'll try and do some of the things that used to give them pleasure and comfort, and find out that they don't, so they'll try them to excess, possibly harming themselves in the process. Addicts have scalded themselves or almost died from hypothermia because they could no longer get water hot or cold enough to bathe in comfortably, or gorged themselves to the point of sickness because they never felt full enough. They won't always realize that they're overcompensating...it's often a subtle thing that other people need to watch out for. It will seem to them like they're just doing what they needs to in order to feel good, but it won't be until something goes wrong that they'll realize they is overdoing it, and even then they probably won't be able to stop." The female doctor continued on mercilessly, she didn't like this any more than the family did, but it all needed to be said.

"Especially in the case of independent and free-willed individuals like them, the constant intrusion of other people into formerly personal and private aspects of their lives, even if they are intimate partners or family, will be a constant source of problems. They're going to get angry at you for meddling, and for being controlling and overprotective, in their eyes. They're likely going to try and hide things from you when they test the strictures of the safety mechanisms you implement. I won't lie, Commander Yamato...I've seen many usually inseperable relationships break up only because of Pink Passion addictions. They'll feel like you don't trust them to take care of themselves anymore, and sadly, they will be somewhat right...because you _can't_ trust them. They're not in full control of themselves anymore, that's the simple truth. There are also often complications arising from the lack of pleasure derived from sex many addicts experience...they might feel that you aren't trying as hard to pleasure them or provide for their intimate needs, even though it is their ability to perceive and respond to your efforts that has been reduced. They may intellectually recognize the falsity of their feelings...but that doesn't mean they won't feel them all the same. In many ways, this is going to be much harder on you than it is on them." The male doctor looked at Kira sympathetically.

"I'm prepared for that." Kira said simply.

"We'll write up a full diagnosis and provide you with full details on what you need to do, in our medical opinions, in order to ensure their safety as best you can." The female doctor turned for the door. "They're still suffering under the effects of the high, and given the purity of the dose they had, and their bodyweight and a number of other factors, they should remain in a gradually diminishing state of pleasure for the next few hours before the withdrawal symptoms start. They're all fully awake and aware and have refused sedation, so feel free to talk with them. I'd advise avoiding any stressful subjects though, especially once the withdrawal starts. The first twelve hours after the high ends are the most acutely dangerous, so we're going to have them stay here in the infirmary overnight. Please don't do anything to change their restraints...they are for their own good, to prevent them from hurting themselves during the withdrawal. By morning they should be calm enough that we can take them off. Please, call us if you need anything." The doctors both bowed their heads briefly in respect and then left.

Athrun put his hand on the wall to help support himself. This was too much for Athrun to take in all at once, but Kira was livid, and that was plainly obvious as he stormed down the corridor, his emotions flaring up, actully becoming visible, and surrounding his body with a brightly glowing blood red flame.

A few minutes later, Asuka and Misato, both of whom were completely unaware of the current situation, waved at Kira as he stormed past them, only for the amethyst-eyed man to lash out with his telekinesis, picking up the red-headed Eva pilot, and slamming her into both walls of the corridor. Asuka impacted the wall closest to Kira first, followed an instant later by an equally punishing impact against the far wall, the second impact leaving her to crumple to the floor in a motionless heap as the purple-haired lieutenant rushed to her side.


	64. Fallout

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 64**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

"Commander Yamato! This is the Excalibur! Be warned...the enemy fleet has launched their nuclear armed forces, and those forces have fired their missiles. Their chances of hitting the PLANTs are low; less than twenty percent per missile, but that is of course still far too risky. We are unable to intercept the missiles as they are already out of our line of fire."

"Understood, Excalibur. I'll take care of it." Kira switched channels. "I'm leaving the fleet for your guys to mop up, the other Gundams and mobile suits just don't have the speed to catch up to those missiles."

"Yes, sir!" Kira's teammates replied in unison. One of them stayed on the line...the man piloting the Infinite Justice Gundam. "Are you sure you can catch up to them yourself, sir? Those missiles have a pretty good head start."

"We'll find out, won't we?" Kira replied as he flipped the Divinity around and once again gunned his thrusters. With a single thought he modified the timing of the heat up/cool down cycle of all of the Divinity's power sources, boosting their outputs up to one hundred ten percent, all of which he diverted to his thrusters. The Divinity shrieked through space, its structural frame vibrating wildly under the stress, cooling canes starting to glow white hot. "Come on, Divinity...hold together." Kira muttured.

"Coolant heat levels rising into the yellow zone. Thruster output shows one hundred fourteen percent. Current speed estimated at five miles per second and rising. ETA to closest missile is twenty seconds." Athrun called to his friend, monitoring the Divinity's systems through his remote link.

The Divinity caught up to the first missile and struck out in passing with a single fist, denting the thruster section of the missile inwards, causing the nuke to veer wildly to the side, corckscrewing off into deep space. Now approaching a cluster of missiles twelve strong, it was all Kira could do to lash out with sweeps of his beam shields, knocking the missiles off course or crushing their fragile bodies with pushes from the magnetically contained beam fields. Activating the shields slowed him a bit, at most speeds the shields had no effect on his speed, but at his current velocity the shields were hitting so much interstellar dust and gas that the impacts were actually acting as counter thrust. He was still flying faster than the missiles though and he caught up to the second cluster. Holding his arms out and back, he spun the Divinity wildly, dragging his beam shields like huge beam blades behind him, disintegrating missiles left, right, top and bottom as he passed through the cluster. Only one cluster and a pair of leading missiles left...only one thousand kilometers to the first PLANT in the path of the missiles; Mauis Ten. Kira disengaged his shields, he needed every microsecond speed could grant him now. He caught up to the cluster of missiles and reached out with both arms, grabbing the trailing missile and diverting its course slightly and then gave it a boost with his own thrusters, causing the forty ton missile to skip forward at an angle, striking and destroying three other missiles. Pleased with this maneuver, Kira repeated it twice more. Now, he only had two missiles remaining, two missiles and three hundred kilometers, fifty seconds at his current speed. The missiles were fifteen seconds ahead of him, both on direct courses for the colony. Kira threw the Divinity into what might have looked like a headlong dive, pushing both hands out and ahead and moving the feet straight back so he ws flying through space like some superhero of old. He caught up with the missiles with thirty seconds to spare, it was too dangerous to use the shields to destroy them at this range as the missiles were probably already armed by this point and a single impact might cause a detonation that could damage or destory the colony. Punching out their thrusters was also not an option, at this point a random course could lead to them crashing into another PLANT. There was only one course of action and it was sheer madness. Kira shrugged the Divinity's shoulders...brilliance...madness...he couldn't tell the diffrence these days.

"Kira..." Athrun said with worry. He was as much a Coordinator as Kira was and he remembered Junius Seven as well.

"I got this, don't worry!" Kira called back. "This'll be one for the history books...good or ill." He muttured after shutting down the communications line. He caught up with the two missiles, which were flying almost parallel, about twent feet apart. Stretching his arms wide, he spun the Divinity like a top so its thrusters were facing towards the PLANT, flying backwards through space. His arms clamped down the forward sections of the missiles, as gently as he could manage while still maintaining a strong grip. To his immense relief, the missiles did not detonate. Then the thrusters, wings of light and Trans-Am all kicked in and the Divinity screamed in metal agony as the angelic machine struggled to cope with the stresses of redirecting a pair of forty ton objects traveling at six point seven kilometers per second into a trajectory exactly one hundred eighty degrees opposite its former heading. He didn't dare look at his cooling system indications as he threw the Divinity up to one hundred thirty percent power.

Alarm sirens and warning lights popped up on Athrun's computer faster than he could click them off. Coolant overheating, structural fractures, thruster overtemp warnings, melting armor, imminent nuclear reactor failure, Zero Point Module systems starting to meltdown. He just kept clicking override, not daring to cut in the safety systems which would shut down the mobile suit, and allow the two missiles to strike the helpless colony. either the mobile suit would hold steady through stresses at or beyond its design tolerances, and the PLANT would be saved, or else it would fail and detonate in an explosion that would utterly drown out the paltry nuclear missiles. To the people who happened to be in positions to watch from the inside of Maius Ten, it was an almost surreal sight. A single overwhelmingly bright blue drive flame twinkled in the lower east sky, framed on either side by the orange warheads of two nuclear missiles, visible through simple binoculars. The mobile suit holding on to the missiles and attempting to overcome their inertia was barely visible around its drive flame...all most people could see was twelve spiky projections that were glowing such a bright white color it was impossible to look at them without causing damage to the eyes. A hundred thousand people felt their breath catch in their throats as the mobile suit was force inexorably towards the colony by the twin thrusters of the missiles, each putting out more than eight hundred thousand pounds of thrust. It seemed impossible that a single mobile suit could output the kind of thrust needed to counteract the momentum of the missiles. The Divinity's thrust backwash struck the outer surface of the tens of meters thick armored transparent alloy that formed the giant window panes that framed each PLANT. The Divinity was slowly winning out against the missiles, his backward speed was down to only thirty meters per second. Thruster backwash melting runnels in the alloy, the Divinity's feet came down to rest on the alloy window. The missiles were now held only eight meters from their impact points and were inching downwards for all they were worth. The missiles seemed almost alive, eager to reach their targets and explode, sending the helpless civilians inside flailing out into the cold embrace of space.

"I...Don't...Fucking...Think...So!" Kira gritted out. All of his power sources were up to one hundred fifty percent, the legs of the Divinity were starting to bend backwards. Nuclear reactor and Zero Point Module power continued to rise as he mentally held down the override button, despite the searing agony of the feedback which he felt, he couldn't let another Junius Seven happen, he would rather die the most hideous and painful of deaths first. At one hundred sixty four percent power, the Divinity finally overwhelmed the forward momentum of the missiles. At one seventy percent power, with so many alarms blaring on his computer that he could no longer read any of the data he was receiving, Athrun observed the Divinity actually start pushing the missiles back, inches at a time at first, but quickly speeding up. Once he'd pushed the missiles a good mile from the PLANT, Kira flipped the Divinity around again, spinning the missiles around as he did so, so that now all three of them were pointed back they way they came. He slowly eased back on reactor power, wincing slightly as the Divinity's cooling systems struggled mightily to preserve the integrity of the multiple reactors powering his machine. "I believe these are yours." Kira contacted the Alliance commander through gritted teeth. "I've always believed in a catch and release policy."

"How did you...what did you...?" Captian Icarus, commander of the Alliance warship Wrath, sputtered before his sharp mind figured out what he was seeing on the sensor screen. The impossible enemy mobile suit, the Divinity Gundam, was coming back towards the ragged remains of his fleet, who were barely holding off the Celestial Being mobile suits. And it was coming back fast, sensors showed speeds of seven miles per second and increasing steadily. It would be on top of them in minutes. It's speed made no sense, it hadn't moved that fast before, even when going at what had to be all out thrust, but then what the pilot had said clicked, he was riding the missiles back. He'd somehow managed to turn them completely around and now he was combining his thrust with theirs, using them like afterburners. "ALL HANDS, ABANDON SHIP!" Icarus cried, wasting no time in heading for the exit himself, there was no sense in dying for a lost cause, he was ashamed that he'd failed this mission, his career in Blue Cosmos was over. But there were other powerful figures looking for supporters out there.

Mu La Flaga was turning his X-02A Wyvern around for another pass on one of the Alliance warships when Kira threw the two nuclear missiles towards the Alliance fleet. For a moment Mu forgot how to fly his fighter, his jaw dropping. "Holy shit!" He closed his jaw, quickly pulling away from the enemy fleet before his jaw dropped again. "The kid _is_ a freaking god!"

Thirty miles from the remains of the Earth Alliance fleet, Kira released his grip on his captured missiles and slowly decelerated. He'd ordered the Celestial Being forces out of the line of effect almost immediately after he'd turned the missiles around, no sense in nuking his own side. It was getting warmer than a hotspring inside his cockpit, the Divinity's cooling systems were still laboring overtime due to the abuse that Kira had just put his machine through, but he did not head back to the Excalibur just yet, this deserved to be watched. Both missiles flew unerringly, aimed by the hand of one amethyst-eyed man's divine power, directly into the Wrath, detonating in twin explosions of blindingly bright purple-white light that almost instantly grew into huge globes of destruction that utterly wiped any trace of the Alliance's twelfth lunar fleet from existence. Kira breathed a huge sigh of relief, once again, the PLANTs had been saved by the thinnest of margins.

The Divinity Gundam now stood in Berlin, Germany. Kira had found several refugee bunkers, places where the support staff and non-combatant families of the German troops had gone to hide when the angelic machine suddenly appeared in the sky. He put down his hand-carried weapons and used the Divinity's hands to scoop off the meter thick metal roofs of the bunkers to reveal the screaming people within, like crowds of wriggling pink sardines. Long range beam cannon fire bounced harmlessly off the Divinity's back, wings, and shoulders as he bent down and swept his hands through the press of civilians, crushing dozens and picking up five people per hand. "Whee!" Kira cried joyfully, flinging them high into the air in an arcing throw. He'd brought the hands back for the next group before the first group started to fall like obscene raindrops around the Divinity. The next group he tossed straight up, so that they splattered against the head, torso and shoulders of the Divinity like rotten fruit, giving the mobile suit a red polka dotted appearance. He worked the Divinity's arms tirelessly, crumpling mobs of people up into flesh balls and hurling them at any German vehicles that approached within firing distance. He nailed one GINN-based mobile suit right on the camera-eye with a ball comprised of fourteen middle-schoolers, all mostly crushed together into a sort of potpourri, but still twitching and screaming, at least until they hit anyway. From the way the mobile suit staggered back, one would have thought it had actually sustained serious damage, rather than just a new layer of filth on its paint. A message light flashed insistently on his threat board, but he ignored it, he was having too much fun to be interrupted.

"And now for my next trick; a break dancing mobile suit!" Kira crowed, as the angel-winged machine leaped onto the nearest shelter full of people, crushing it in like a man stamping down on a soda can.

The Divinity was not designed to break dance, or to dance period, but since the Divinity Gundam was his own body, Kira managed to pull it off. He rubbed off a lot of the human smears on his shoulders from the blood, but gained many, many more from crushing hundreds of refugees beneath his torso and legs as he danced about, immune to the fire and smoke and falling debris. When he finally brought the Divinity back to it's feet, it's legs were solid red from the knees on down, and more red than the paint scheme of white, black, and red from knees to hips. The palms of the hands were also dyed a deep crimson from making what he had dubbed as peopleballs. It would take some serious cleaning when he got back, but blood didn't cut down on mechanical effectiveness in such comparatively small quantities.

"Aww, I think I broke them." Kira gestured at the ruined bunkers, formerly full of people, now no more than ravaged tombs. "Will the rest of you play with me instead? Oops, theres one more group!" Kira swept his hands down and came up with a group of twelve high school girls, it was too bad Kira thought, some of them were pretty cute. He trapped them between the Divinity's cupped hands and looked out at the dozens of incoming German mobile suits. "I've got hostages!" He called out as loud as his speakers could manage.

"How the fuck can we negotiate in good faith with you, after watching the atrocities you've committed?" A strained and tense voice answered from the closest mobile suit, the GINN-based model he'd plastered with a peopleball.

"Aww, come on, it wasn't that bad was it?" Kira mocked him. "I mean, I only just crumpled up little kids and girls and threw them at you, or rolled around and crushed them, or flung them up to fall to their deaths. It was funny, wasn't it? I certainly got a laugh out of it."

"You make me sick, you monster!" The German pilot retorted, drawing a sword and stepping forward.

"I suggest you stop, unless you want a second peopleball to the face." Kira cooed, slightly tightening the Divinity's hands, to a chorus of panicked screams from the girls in his grip. The enemy mobile suit froze in midstride.

"What do you want, you bastard?" The enemy pilot snarled.

"You're negotiating with me, that's good." Kira smiled. "Now, I might let some of these girls live, after having my way with them, that is."

"You're disgusting!" The enemy pilot roared, only for his mobile suit to fall onto its back as a pair of rail gun shells slammed into it, severing its left leg and right arm.

"You think you're so cool." The German pilot growled. His weapon systems were no longer responding and his machine quite literally only had one leg to stand on. The GINN-based mobile suit still had its flight capability but maneuverability and speed were going to be negligible, there would be no way for him to flee unaided, and since his own forces had either already flown away or were currently boarding ships that were about to leave, and on the other side of an entire Celestial Being defense line. He was out of luck when it came to backup. With a slight sigh, the German pilot caressed the self-detonation switch. If he was going to go, it wouldn't be alone. The self destruct sequence on the GINN-based mobile suit was easily enough to reduce everything within one mile to ashes in an instant. He kept his hand on the control, but didn't operate it just yet, he had a feeling that the pilot of the angelic machine would feel obliged to answer, then he'd have time to choose his moment.

"No! I'm the exact opposite of cool. I hate _every last bit_ of this shit. War is _not_ cool. Killing is _not_ cool. Genocide is _not_ cool. However, as much as I loathe this war and every reason it is being fought for, I loathe just standing by and watching it happen even more. I don't _want_ to do the things I'm doing, but doing them is _much more preferrable_ to me than just _standing on the sidelines_ and letting ZAFT and the recently formed Earth Alliance _completely annihilate each other_! As a Citizen of the Earth, I cannot allow it! As an Ultimate Coordinator, I cannot allow it! As a human being, I cannot allow it!" Kira replied, his voice rising in volume as he struggled to control his rapidly rising anger, his temper and his passion to end war were both running near the boiling point right now.

"You make such pretty speeches. But in the end you're still going to be the one pulling that trigger." The German pilot replied with a smirk. "You say you don't want this war to continue. I say if that's really how you feel; why are you even interefering and prolonging it? This war would have been over hours ago if your ship and its mobile suits hadn't shot down the nukes."

"You expect to hurt me with your words?" Kira asked, his voice once more calm, not at all surprised by what his enemy had said. "People have been trying to twist my words, actions and reasons around to mean what they want them to mean for millenia, ever since I first got trapped in the cockpit of the Strike Gundam on Heliopolis. At first it was really bad at Artemis, but it has been prevalent throughout each and every conflict I've fought in, always there are those who call me traitor or coward or fool or puppet or even murderer. I've grown so used to defending my actions in the eyes of people who have no idea what sort of choices I've had to make that I've got most arguements memorized and instantly know how to counter them effectively. Personally, it upsets and bothers me greatly; the fact that I would grow so used to explaining why I acted, that I actually plan ahead to think of what I would say if I did act. It's so fucking stupid and pointless. Actions are the results of choices, and choices are the results of actions, it's a never ending cycle that no one can ever escape from. I'm acting now, to kill you, because of a choice Lacus and I and everyone we know and trust jointly made. You and those like you present a real and deadly threat to the safety and peace of the world. We may not have the right to judge your actions, in the legal sense, but this is the battlefield, not the courtroom and we have to live with the consequences of our choices."

"You have no right to judge anyone, you damn bastard!" The German pilot shrieked in outrage.

"I don't have to justify myself or my actions to anyone and certianly not to someone like you!" Kira snarled, as the Divinity Gundam's eyes flashed with an intense amethyst light. "Despite all that you and your nation have done to me, to my friends and family, and to innumerable other people during your life, including your own family; you still deserved more epitaphy than just a simple execution shot. You were once a human being, even if you don't remember, I know this to be true, you had a mother and father at one point, just like everyone else, but this is the end for you. To paraphrase something someone once said; may God have mercy on your soul, because I have none left to spare for you." With those words, he fired a full-burst from his weapons, vaporizing the group of machines that were standing in front of him.

"It's time to end this shit!" Kira roared as he stormed onto the Excalibur's bridge an hour later, causing everyone to turn and stare at him as his body once again began to glow with a blood red light, illimunating the entire bridge. "Take the Excalibur into a high stationary orbit and bring all weapons online!"

"Target planet; Earth, will be outside minimum safe firing distance for both the GENESIS and the World Devestator cannons in t-minus sixty seconds and counting." Andrew announced from his position at the weapons, his voice booming from the Excalibur's PA system. "Now commencing final readiness checks on all energy weapons, loading anti-ground missiles in all missile tubes, opening dorsal missile bays and ventral bomb bay, preparing to begin both passive and active communications and radar jamming procedures on all frequencies. No signs of hostile or friendly presences within the minimum predicted operational area. All power sources are online and operating within acceptible parameters. GN field and positron shields are online and stable. We are green for firing all weapons."

To an observer outisde the Excalibur, the massive ship suddenly lit up like a Christmas tree. One moment, the huge dagger-shaped ship was almost as dark as the blackness of space itself, but then it was suddenly glowing with a blood red light, even as the ventral bomb bay opened up, while the entire dorsal section of the vessel lit up with millions of pinpoints of bright green and blue-red light.

Much to Kira's annoyance, as the Excalibur's weapons finally reached full power, he was stopped from unleashing his wrath on the planet below by a communications line from the infirmary, which echoed throughout the bridge. "Commander Yamato, please report to the infirmary immediately!"

Kira stormed into the infirmary a few minutes later, not caring that his right hand had brushed against Lacus's left leg, the glancing touch causing her to entire body to shudder in pleasure.

"What is it?" Kira sighed, trying to contain the anger he was feeling, since he had just been denied his revenge on the planet below.

"We've come up with a temporary antidote for the conditions which your lovers are currently afflicted with, sir." The male doctor replied.

"Thank god!" Cagalli, Hope, Lacus, Murrue and Mayu choursed in unison.

"They don't need it." Kira replied. "Also, release them from their restraints."

"S-sir?" The doctor asked, clearly shocked.

"Did I stutter?" Kira growled.

"N-no sir." The doctor quickly replied, before walking over to the controls for the restraints and reluctantly releasing the five women.

An instant later, the infirmary was filled with a blindingly bright flash of light, and when the light faded, Kira found himself staring directly into a pair of eyes, one gold and the other purple, both of the eyes were glittering with a mix of rage and lust.

"Kira." Yumi hissed, her tone of voice making it completely clear that she was very pissed off. "You isolated the five of us here in the infirmary for six months, with no contact with the rest of the crew. While it is true that you visited us everyday, you wouldn't even touch us!"

"That's bec-" Kira began, only to be cut off as Yumi grabbed his right wrist, tightly squeezing it as she glared heatedly into his eyes.

"Give me my powers back." She snarled. "Give them all back to me, and do it _now_!"

"No." Kira replied, his response earning him an eye-watering smack across the face.

"Do I have to order you to return my powers?" Yumi growled, squeezing Kira's wrist even tighter.

"I said no." Kira repeated, only for Yumi to deliver a devestating kick to his groin, the blow sending him tumbling to the floor in pain.

"Do it." Yumi growled. "Or I'll keep kicking you in the groin until your dick and both of your balls have been pushed completely into your body!"

"O-okay, you win." Kira whimpered, causing Yumi to smile slightly as she hauled him back to his feet.

After taking a few seconds to compose himself, Kira returned all of Yumi's powers, and as soon as he did, his vision was filled with a blindingly bright light. When his vision cleared, Kira realized that Yumi had teleported them both into the Inner Sanctum.

"Computer." Kira quickly spoke. "Surround the Inner Sanctum with a level ten force field, no one gets in or out without my permission!"

"Force field established." The computer responded an instant later. "Inner Sanctum secure."


	65. Love and Lust

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 65**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

**Warning:** This chapter contains an extreme lemon, and is not suitable for anyone under the age of 18.

* * *

"Kira Yamato, you're going to pay dearly for making us suffer like that during the past six months." Yumi growled as she grabbed Kira by the arm and all but dragged him into the elevator. "We each have at least six months of sexual frustration built up; a combined total of just over two and a half years without any sex."

"The doctors already explained why I couldn't even touch you!" Kira yelled. "It wasn't any easier for me than it was for you!"

Instead of replying, Yumi kissed Kira. It was a deep and probing kiss, all wet open mouths and slippery tongue, and while she was kissing him she untucked his uniform shirt and her hands roamed up his back. After a moment, the elevator door opened and Yumi grabbed Kira's hand, all but dragging him into the Inner Sanctum.

"Hey, now." He said weakly, as she led him to the second elevator, which connected the first level of the Inner Sanctum to the other four. "We don't have to...you know...hurry."

"We don't have to wait, either." She said, pushing the button for the fourth floor, which contained the salon, delivery rooms, and botanical gardens. Quick as a magician, she undid the front of his uniform pants and pushed them partway down his hips.

"Yumi, wait." He said, even as most of his brain screamed at him to shut the hell up and go for it, enjoy it, don't say the wrong thing and screw it all up!

She paused and pouted inquisitively, even as the elevator stopped on the fourth floor and the doors silently slid open. "What?"

"Um...let me get my shoes off first." He said, as Yumi led him through the salon and into the botanical gardens.

"All right." Yumi smiled as she lowered herself onto a futon, situated underneath a pair of large palm trees, and coiled her legs beneath her, propped on her elbows. "Undress for me, then, Kira."

The sight of her like that, surrounded by her tropical jungle and waiting for him, made Kira reel. He quickly fumbled out of his uniform, and stood there in his boxers as a sudden, and inexplicable flush of embarrassment took hold. But her gaze skimmed over his chest and legs without any hint of disappointment. On the contrary, she regarded him with a simmering hunger that left him weak in the knees. He quit worrying about whether he looked silly with his erection poking out the front of his boxers, quit worrying about everything.

Yumi curled up and leaned forward with an amazing flexibility and hooked her fingers into the elastic of his waistband. She tugged him toward her. His knees hit the edge of the futon and he pinwheeled his arms, but she did not relent, and the next thing he knew he was falling, twisting onto his side, landing heavily beside her on the cushions.

She laughed and rolled atop him. In contrast to the swelter of the room, her skin felt cool and dry. They kissed again. This time, when Kira reached for her, she did not dance teasingly away but writhed and murmured at his ever more confident caresses.

The feel of her was all sinuous and sensual, rubbing along his body as her tongue traced a path of quick, darting little kisses from ear to jaw to neck to collarbone, and so on down over his chest. She whisked the boxers off before he could either help or object, and with a single supple motion, her fingers curled readily around his cock.

Kira flung his head back and groaned. The nails of her other hand tickled through his pubic hair to toy with his balls. He felt the puff of her breath, and raised his head in time to see her talented tongue flick out.

Her eyes were closed, and he saw her face contort with pleasure as she ran her tongue up and down his shaft, linger at the tip, probe at the slit there to coax urgent droplets of pre-cum from him. He was tense as a wire from head to toe, capable only of low, strangled sounds.

Abandoning her delightful licking torture, she suddenly took his entire length into her mouth. He bucked on the futon, scattering pillows in all directions as his legs gave an involuntary kick. His hands sank into the mattress as if he feared he might just fly up and hit the ceiling from the sheer ecstasy of it.

Yumi gave him no time to get used to the sensation of being engulfed, but commenced bobbing her head up and down, sucking and slurping and taking him deep, so deeply that it was as if her throat opened to receive him and then closed in a wonderful constriction.

He tried to beg her to slow down, to tell her that he was too close, and that couldn't hold back. If she understood his gasping words, she didn't care, and only redoubled her efforts. She cupped and cradled his balls as they gathered tight in impending release.

At the last moment, Kira was able to muffle his outcry by biting a pillow. His orgasm surged forth, a dam breaking and all of him pouring out in a single torrent. Yumi's throat worked quckly, milking him of every drop.

Dazed and quivering, Kira sprawled on the futon in the spreadeagled form of an X. His chest rose and fell in heaves as he panted for breath.

Yumi stretched out beside Kira, up on one elbow, even as her silky, ankle-length brunette tresses fell around the two lovers like a curtain. Kira's amethyst eyes blinked blearily up at Yumi. She was smiling a beautiful, contented smile. He could feel her soft, bare breasts gently pressing against his upper arm. The amethyst-eyed man wasn't sure when his lover had shimmied out of her uniform, he'd missed the show, or maybe in her wriggling around, she'd fallen out of the uniform and it was bunched around her waist.

Yumi smirked as she reached underneath Kira, producing two pairs of thick silk scarves, and before the amethyst-eyed man could do or say anything, he found that his wrists and ankles had been securely restrained to the futon, effectively rendering him immobile.

"Don't go anywhere, Kira." Yumi teased, smiling as she turned and headed towards the door. "I'll be right back."

Yumi was still smiling when she returned a moment later, now carrying a hairbrush in her right hand. Kira could only watch as his lover stopped a few feet in front of him. She was now standing directly underneath a showerhead concealed within the ceiling.

After savoring the vision of Kira's naked body of moment, Yumi turned around so that she was now facing away from her lover, granting him a full view of her hair, which now extended for nearly twenty-five feet. As soon as Yumi had turned her back to Kira, warm water began to spray from the shower overhead, causing her to sigh in contentment as the warm liquid began to fall down onto her silken tresses.

Kira could only watch, completely transfixed, as his beautiful lover began to teasingly brush her hair. After only a few short minutes, Yumi stopped running the brush through her silken tresses, turned her head and winked at her amethyst-eyed lover before then tossing her wet hair with the brush. Kira groaned in frustration as his lover's soft, water-soaked tresses landed on his body, covering him up to his neck.

"Damnit, Yumi, quit toying with me." Kira groaned as she tentatively walked around him until she was standing over his head, one leg on each side of his head. Kira couldn't help but blush at the sight before him.

Yumi; the physical personification of his many lover's combined minds and bodies, was standing over him, completely naked, with her dripping nether lips in full view. Kira couldn't tell if the dripping was coming from Yumi herself, or if it was just run off from the watering heads for the plants. Needless to say, the young man was highly aroused at the sight before him.

"Yumi, come on babe, at least untie my arms." Kira smiled. "I'll fuck you right."

Yumi just smiled as she squatted on his face while freeing his erect pole from the confines of her hair. "Shut up and start licking, buster." She ordered, before then taking his entire length into her mouth.

Kira grunted at the renewed feeling in his groin. _'Two can play at this game.'_ He thought as he snaked his tongue into the confines of Yumi's heated slit.

Due to the effects of the drug, Yumi bent backwards, nearly in half, at the feeling of Kira's ministrations. "Aaaah! Kira!" She screamed, even as she began to grind her hips into Kira's face while pumping his shaft. "Yes, don't stop!"

Kira quickly changed tactics and began to suck on Yumi's sensitive clit. Yumi shrieked in delight as her first orgasm hit her like a Mack truck. Finally, she slumped down on top of Kira as she slowly came down from her orgasm. By this time, Kira had noticed that the knots around his arms had become loose, and he was able to silently slip his arms free of the silk restraints.

Yumi, having recovered from her orally induced orgasm, began to move herself down to take things to the next level. Kira decided that now was the time to spring his little surprise, as he stealthily sat up and wrapped his hands around Yumi's waist

"Ah, your hands feel so good, Kira." Yumi sighed as she began to relax. _'Wait, his hands!'_ She thought after realizing what she had said, and turned to see Kira with a devilish smirk on his face.

"My turn now, baby." Kira said, as he lifted his lover's body up and moved to her wet slit.

"Kira, wait! I'm-AH!" Yumi began, only to let out a loud moan as Kira brought her down on his shaft.

Yumi threw her head back, resting it on Kira's shoulder as he began to thrust upwards into her. "Y-you...jerk-mmm! I...was...ah...wasn't ready." She said between pants and moans.

"That's the whole idea." Kira whispered into her ear as he began to gently gnaw at her earlobe. "You've been very naughty, Yumi." The amethyst-eyed man said as he sped up his motions, while his lover's moans increased in both volume and frequency. Just as Kira sensed that Yumi was about to reach her climax, he stopped moving and, at an agonizingly slow pace, pulled out of her. "And naughty girls like you should be punished." He finished as he moved out from under her untying his feet as he did so.

"Kira..." Yumi whined. "Don't leave me like this, please. I'll go crazy." She begged as her handsome husband stood over her.

"I kind of like seeing you like this." Kira smirked.

"Kira, please...we're all begging you." Yumi pleaded. She could feel the ache in between her legs as her delicate flesh screamed for release. Kira simply smirked as he began to turn his back to her.

Thinking that Kira was going to leave her frustrated as she was, Yumi lashed out at him with her hair, intending to tie her lover down with her soft tresses and ride him until her legs fell off. But, as her silken strands got within two feet of Kira, they suddenly stopped and fell limply to the floor.

"What the?" Yumi started.

"I disabled your ability to control your hair as though it were a limb." Kira explained, even as he turned to face Yumi and began to gather up the long, silken strands. "However, you can still make your hair longer, if you want to." He added, his eyes sparkling with desire, as he pushed Yumi against the trunk of the tree which they were beneath.

"What are you going to do?" Yumi asked, hiding the slight fear, but not the lust in her voice.

"This." Kira answered, and before Yumi knew what had happened, her lover had wrapped her hair around the trunk of the tree, before then weaving the luxurious strands around her wrists, which were now crossed above her head. Kira had just utilized Yum's own hair to restrain her.

Once Kira had finished tying Yumi's hair to the tree, he quickly spread her legs and planted his head in her womanhood. Yumi writhed as Kira continued his oral attack, moaning at every skillful touch of his tongue.

It was a well know fact that the once someone had been injected with the drug, which was known as 'Pink Passion' by some and 'Spiffy' by others, the entire body would be stuck in a constant state of intense arousal, but what many people didn't know was that this effect was magnified immensely in the genitals and nipples.

"Ah...Kira...K-Kira." Yumi moaned as Kira continued to lick her, pushing his tongue past her outer folds and going as deep as he could. This was enough to push Yumi over the edge as her orgasm hit hard, causing her sweet nectar to cover her lover's face. Kira smirked as he moved up from between Yumi's legs and looked into her beautiful eyes, which were now half-lidded and shimmering with lust. "You know...because of this tree...my hair is going to get...all dirty." Yumi panted.

"Don't worry. We'll wash it later, but first..." Kira smirked as he repositioned himself at Yumi's entrance. "We have so much catching up to do." And with that Kira bucked his hips forward moving inside Yumi in one fluid motion. Kira proceeded to pound Yumi senseless for the next several hours, bent on relieving both of their pent up sexual frustrations.

After almost ten straight hours of sexual bliss, the two lovers were completely spent. Kira reached up to free Yumi's wrists from her tied hair, but he found it difficult due to the fact that he had accidentally tied Yumi to a tree that would cover itself in sap as a form of self-defense.

_'Uh oh.'_ Kira thought as Yumi turned her head to see what her husband was looking at.

"Kira, look what you did!" Yumi exclaimed. "Now my beautiful hair is all sticky with sap and I doubt we have anything in the Salon that will get it out." She said, as she tried to seperate some of the clumped up strands.

"Don't worry, Yumi." Kira smiled as he stood up, pulling Yumi to her feet with him, and finally leading her towards the salon. "I'm sure we can come up with something. If need be, we can spend the whole day in the showers." He managed to steal a quick kiss before heading out of the Botanical Gardens and over to the Salon. Thankfully, the main salon was located on the same deck as the gardens.

Kira and Yumi then spent the next three and a half hours trying to clean the sap from Yumi's hair, with very little success. Just when Kira was about to consider much more drastic measures, Yumi remembered something.

"Kira, I think that I, or rather Mayu, has thought of something that might help." Yumi said as she stood up from the stool which she had been siting on in the shower. One of her lesser used abilities was the ability to gain access to the minds of all the girls that she was comprised of.

Yumi smiled as she motioned for Kira to follow her into the salon, grinning seductively as the door slid shut behind them. She giggled to herself as she led her lover over to the opposite side of the salon, before then sitting down in a lone chair and reclining.

Kira silently watched as Yumi tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, before then laying her head in what appeared to be nothing more than a large wash basin, located directly behind the salon chair. Before Kira could say anything, a thick, transparent lid snapped shut over Yumi's forehead, trapping her brunette tresses within the basin. Kira could only continue to watch in surprise as multiple holographic readouts suddenly appeared in front of Yumi, even as the washer started counting down.

"As you have probably been able to guess by now, Kira, this is much, much more than a simple wash basin." Yumi seductively purred, as a cascade of warm, soapy water fell over her hair.

As the wash cycle started, Yumi let a relaxed sigh escape her lips. From the outside, all that could be seen within the spinning, churning washer was a whirlwind of soap suds and brown hair. Within twenty minutes, the powerful churning movement had cleansed Yumi's tresses of the thick layer of sap which had coated them. When Yumi's hair had finally been thoroughly washed, the spin cycle began, and nothing could be seen in the washer, except for a circular wall of brunette hair.

One of the washer's more advanced features was that it gathered weather data from the area around the Excalibur to determine whether it should use a dryer cycle or a clothesline in the open air for natural drying. And since the ship was currently in Earth's atmosphere, near the equator, it was too beautiful a day to let Yumi's silken tresses dry indoors. Using powerful clothespins, spaced every five feet, robotic arms hung Yumi's soggy hair, which still measured twenty-five feet in length, out on a line, and pulleys wheeled her soft tresses out onto the sun deck.


	66. The Edge of Insanity

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 66**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

"You are _not_ going!" Kira's voice, raised into an emphatic shout, momentarily brought all eyes in the Excalibur's hanger towards his location, moments before everyone whom was not immediately involved in the conversation, or an otherwise vital task, got the hell out of the hanger, not wanting to be around for the confrontation which they all saw brewing. "It is far too soon! You should be resting and recuperating!" The Excalibur was currently in its custom dock in Orb, but the ship and its crew was quickly preparing to move out.

"You _can't_ tell me what I will or will not do! Fuck resting, fuck recuperating..._this_ is the release that I need!" Cagalli retorted hotly, her voice equally loud, tapping her hand firmly on the Akatsuki's armored leg. "I'm not a little girl or a helpless child! I can handle myself just fine! I'm feeling great, really. Or I was until you started being a jackass!"

"You should be in bed! You were assaulted by enemy soldiers and tortured! That's not something people just shrug off! Not you! Not Athrun! Not even me!" Kira snapped back. "I admit, I probably should still be resting too, but plain facts are, I heal faster than you, and I didn't get injected with a concentrated dose of one of the most addictive drugs around! What if you suffer a depression attack in battle? You could die!"

"I could die whether or not I was in a Gundam, if I really do have one of these 'depression attacks' people keep on assuming I will have! Which is far from certain...no one knows for sure how this drug will affect me. Yes, it makes me cry a lot! Yes, I sometimes just want to curl up in a ball and lie there for the rest of eternity! But I know that's _not_ me! I don't let those impulses control me! Frankly, I have more problems with depression because of what you people do 'in order to protect me' than I would if you just left me the fucking hell alone! Where the hell do you get off telling me what's a good idea and what isn't anyway?"

"You're not just putting your own life in danger, you're risking the rest of us as well! If you have a problem, we're going to have to save you!" Kira answered firmly.

"Oh, so I'm a _burden_ now, am I? I see! Well thank you for _that_ opinion, jerkoff! I'm sometimes pretty sure _you're_ a burden too, but at least I don't act self-righteous about it! _I...can...handle...myself_! Why can't you _understand_ that?" Cagalli snarled, her nose mere inches from his.

"Because you're my sister and the only blood family I have until the others decide to pop out a few children! I'm worried about you! Is that so hard to believe!" Kira yelled back. He forced himself to keep his hands at his sides, fists clenched, no matter how badly he wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake some sense into her. God, but she was so pig-headed sometimes!

"Your worry is _stifling_ me! You're my only sibling too, you know...I'm just as worried about you, if not more so because you take risks that I would _never_ try! I am _going with you_, and I am launching into battle. That is _final_! There is nothing you can say to me that will change my mind about that! If you can't stand that idea so much, you're welcome to stay behind, but the Excalibur flies under my discretion, not yours! Make up your mind quickly though, because we need to leave soon!" Cagalli's hands were likewise clenched into fists, and it was a real struggle for her to not reach out and beat some sense into him!

Kira had made it, unmolested and most probably unnoticed, from the Excalibur to the area he had selected for his first anti-war operation. It was not a particularly suspicious place, any more so than a half dozen locations he could have chosen around the world, and in truth, he'd more or less picked a name out of a hat. The Earth Alliance had built a large naval base on the Eastern shores of the island, part of a chain that extended outward from Orb and Carpentaria, and was steadily expanding inwards, towards several small communities of civilians who had retreated up into the mountains when they had noticed the first signs of military activity in the area. Sadly, that retreat didn't seem to be enough for the Earth Alliance commanders, as teams of Earth Alliance mobile suits and ground forces were now probing into the mountains in pursuit of the refugees, either looking for prisoners for intel purposes, or, much more often, just shooting up the wildlife for shits and giggles.

Just thinking about what had happened to his family, even in passing, caused grief and regret to well up anew, raw and blazing hot, constricting his throat closed as he let out a whining sob, something he never would have done were he not alone. Unfelt tears poured down his cheeks, the Divinity's reactors fluttering in sympathetic motion to his labored, ragged breaths as he sobbed, his grief building emotional pressure inside his mind faster than his body could release it. It was infinite, self-multiplying, this sadness, this outrage, this pulsating dark desire to scream at the world and hurt and kill things regardless of their guilt or innocence, to finally lash out once more at everything that had ever wronged him and those he cared about!

The Divinity's hands curled into fists as the beam claws flared to life and tore shallow, pitch black scars in the MCPS armor across its face and chest, without compromising the protection which the advanced armor offered, before the Divinity, and Kira, threw back their head and howled their torment across the airwaves, the incoherent, pained shout stirring up dust and startling animals into silence for dozens of miles in every direction, echoing through the mountain valleys like a deathly knell of a lost soul. Emotions temporarily exhausted by that scream, Kira and the Divinity staggered forward a step, sweat pouring off Kira's body, the Divinity's armored skin twitching in sympathetic movement as he panted for breath, tasting hot copper on his tongue from where he'd accidentally bitten the side of his cheek trying to hold the agony in. Blips of sound and color appeared on those sections of his mind hooked up to the Divinity's sensor systems, and Kira straightened up once more, icy resolute calmness pouring through him as the Earth Alliance troops began advancing into the valley.

First came a light screen of Armored Personnel Carriers acting as scouts, and then behind them came a large vanguard of M1 Abrams Main Battle Tanks and more Armored Personnel Carriers, followed by the main force of bulk infantry transports and heavy support vessels, including a pair of Petrie-class land battleships and a single Archangel-class battleship flying above. Alongside the Petrie-class ships, marched an even four squadrons of Earth Alliance troops, in GOUFs, ZAKUs, GINNs, Strike Daggers and Windams, all of which had either been stolen or reverse-engineered from Celestial Being's own mobile suits. Behind them were several convoys worth of supply carriers, most likely carting the base materials that would be used to rapidly construct a forward base deeper in the mountains. Leading the large procession of mobile suits was a single Gundam, and to Kira's horror, the machine appeared to be a red and black colored Exia Gundam. Kira suspected that the Exia Gundam was piloted by an Earth Alliance Commander who probably didn't command the entire force, but no doubt was the 'leader' nonetheless.

Kira let them advance a few hundred meters into the valley, until he was sure that there was no more than a token rearguard of tanks and mobile suits bringing up the rear, and then he stepped forward and dropped his Phase Cloak, standing in plain view of the oncoming armored column. The constrenation of the scout vehicles, and the disarray among the main van of mobile suits, brought a hard edged smile of bitter amusement to Kira's face, though they recovered quickly enough from their shock, no doubt emboldened by the fact that there was only one mobile suit. They advanced cautiously all the same, obviously remembering that most of Celestial Being's machines could remain invisible even to the most powerful of modern Earth Alliance sensors, expecting to be ambushed from either side while Kira distracted them.

Kira detached a few of his DRAGOON units, just enough to create a single light bending prism, and fired just one of his twin buster rifles, bending the bright yellow beam blast so that it cut a very visible line through the dirt and rock about halfway between him and the oncoming Earth Alliance forces, scorching the ground glassy and black wherever the beam touched. "This is Gundam Miester Kira Yamato, in the Divinity, addressing the Earth Alliance taskforce now advancing towards me." The amethyst-eyed man began, even as he holstered the twin buster rifle behind his back. "I have drawn my line in the dirt. Anyone who crosses that line, or who initiates hostile action will be destroyed. This is your only warning. If you would prefer to leave this place alive, you _will_ dismount from your mobile suits and vehicles and return to your base in your armored personnel carriers. I will _not_ allow you to wage war upon the helpless and the dispossesed." Kira announced firmly, deatching the rest of his DRAGOONs and putting them in a loose defensive orbit around himself, his hands relaxed at his sides, fingertips just barely brushing the grips of his beam rifles. He stood like that as he waited for a reply from the Earth Alliance, whose advance had now slowed to a crawl with uncertainty.

The mobile suits, led by the Exia, deployed to the front of the line, spreading out in a wide line with the Commander in their midst, and clanked to a halt just shy of the line Kira had emblazoned into the ground. Behind the hulking line of bipedal war machines, the armored vehicles ground into their own offensive formations, training their guns upon the stationary Gundam, although Kira did note, with a smirk, that nobody was yet painting him with any targeting sensors, obviously fearing, and rightly so, that he would intrepret it as a hostile action. Kira's communications lines crackled in his inner ear, as the Earth Alliance force replied to his announcement. "Say again? Who the _hell_ do you think you are? You honestly think that we're just going to disarm and turn tail and flee?" A incredulous voice asked him. "I don't care _who_ you are, you're..."

"I am Kira Jesus Yamato, and I've said what I have to say. The choice is yours now, you stupid fuck." Kira cut him off harshly, broadcasting to each and every one of the enemy machines individually. Just in case they thought he was bluffing, he sent a picture of his face as well, to quell any possible doubters. Kira wasn't sure whether he felt gratified when most of the Earth Alliance machines physically flinched or took a step back as the pilots came to grips with the reality of who they were facing. Even the commander seemed wrongfooted, well that he should be. How the hell were you supposed to react, when you found yourself caught between duty and a living legend? Kira waited patiently, his body tense and coiled for instant action, as he prayed for the Earth Alliance commander to make the right choice. Unfortunately for them, in the end, duty won out over common sense, and hurbris only reinforced the error.

"Kira Yamato, huh? Well, our base commander will be very happy with us if we came back with your head in a bag." The Exia raised one foot meaningfully, moving its arms across its body at the chest and waist, activating the beam shield projectors mounted into the tops of the forearms to cover the Exia's body from head to toe in bright pink energy. "Don't be afraid, men, its Kira Yamato, the man who does not kill! He may destroy your machine, but your life is in no dang..." The commander stepped arrogantly forward, his raised foot slamming down on Kira's side of the line in the dirt. Barely had the dust started to rise from that step when Kira drew his beam rifles and fired a single shot from his right hand weapon, vomiting forth a brilliant pinprick flare of oscillating red that trailed a halo of twisted air currents in its wake as it sped across the few hudnred meters seperating the Divinity and the Exia.

The crimson beam blast struck and passed through the Exia with a ripple of warped superdense plasma, the vacuum tunnel implosion that followed the speeding particles as they ripped the beam shields to shreds a millisecond before the particles themselves struck the Exia square in the middle of its torso, directly over the cockpit section, initiating a limited nuclear chain reaction that atomized the center section of the Exia in a brilliant flash of light, a cone of destructive energy extending out through the back of the Exia to melt the sensors and weapons off the Vindicator that had been standing behind his leader, slagging his frontal armor into a smoking black ruin as the GOUF slammed onto the ground on its back in surprise. The Exia's arms and head crashed to the ground in three seperate locations, while its lower limbs stood bisecting the line in the dirt, smoking rising thickly from the waistline, above which nothing remained of the Exia Gundam or its overconfident pilot. Silence and stillness descended upon the scene like a choking fog, as the echoes of the explosion rebounded from the mountain walls again and again.

An instant later, Kira suddenly detected dozens of target locks forming on the Divinity as the soldiers reacted to the unexpected death of their leader, caution thrown to the wind under the influence of anger and the desire for revenge. He wanted to be saddened by this outcome, but he found that only a welling of excitement existed inside him. He needed this release, this carthartic exercise of the grim anger that broiled inside him. He had given his warning, and it had been completely ignored. His fragile sense of mercy was swept aside by his disgust and fury. If they wanted a war, then he would give them one beyond all of their expectations.

Return fire snapped belatedly from the remaining mobile suits, and the armored vehicles behind them, the searing blasts of beam fire mixing with the contrails of missiles and the yellow-orange tracers of traditional cannon and linear weapon fire, all converging upon his still stationary position. Dodging the incoming fire would have been the simplest of matters, he could have moved the Divinity more than a mile away before the closest weapon even passed through his previous location, but he wasn't here to fight, he was here to destroy, to make a point, to wage a war beyond all wars. The DRAGOON units swarmed, beams splintering and refracting as they were bounced between the remote weapons, sometimes interdicting physical projectiles in the process, but always curving around and coming right back at those who had initially fired them. Meanwhile, Kira gestured with his left hand, having stowed that beam rifle in order to free up the Gravitic Manipulation Field Generator in the hand, which he used to grab hold of missiles and shells and hurl them straight back the way they had come.

The end result of the Earth Alliance forces opening fire was that not a single attack got within ten meters of the Divinity Gundam, and they inflicted tremendous collateral damage upon their own allies, as Kira picked off and returned over eighty percent of the incoming weapons fire and redirected it into the reeling Earth Alliance forces. Seconds later, in the short lull that followed as over half of the front line forces staggered backwards, damaged or destroyed, Kira expertly manuvered his DRAGOON units, creating a glowing beam shield and creating a prism in front of himself and cut loose with a full-burst from his weapons, refracting each of his beam blasts into twenty different multi-colored beams that interlocked in a wide, conelike pattern of crisscrossing light that filled the far end of the valley for several seconds, illuminating the entire valley brighter than the noonday sun for the duration, the light so bright it was painful to the unshielded eye. Numerous explosions blanketed the area for almost an entire minute afterward, as the Earth Alliance force all but dissolved, sliced into sparking and bleeding cubes by the gridwork of beam blasts, over twenty five hundred soldiers were erased from existence in less than two full seconds.

Eyes aglow with anger, Kira holstered his remaining beam rifle and stepped forward into the hell he had wrought, using both of the Divinity's GMFGs to grab and hurl hunks of burning wreckage into each other, or those precious few undamaged machines that remained, explosions of junked shrapnel scything down the shocked Earth Alliance soldiers that had stumbled from the ruins of their transport vehicles. Kira did not go out of his way to attack these helpless, stunned men and women, but neither did he detour to avoid them. Above all, war was an uncaring thing, it was the ultimate equalizer, as deadly to the rich as it was to the poor. They had chosen to make this place a battleground, they had tossed their own lives upon the altar of war, it was no longer his problem if they lived or died. He turned his attention away from the scrambling infantry who fled before him, to a damaged Strke Dagger that had escaped the worst of the onslaught, somehow only having lost its primary weapon arm to the coruscating beam blasts. In an instant, Kira had his Quantum Crystal anti-ship sword in his left hand and he hurled the crystalline blade at the limping mobile suit, which was trying to head back down the valley, the way it had come. The blade spun through the air, emitting rainbow radiance of its own as the beam-edged weapon cleaved through the very molecules of moisture in the sky, before embedding itself through the back of the Strike Dagger, impaling the pilot in her seat.

Kira gestured with his left hand, and the sword pulled itself out of the Strike Dagger's back and unerringly returned to his hand in time for him to sweep it down and bisect a line of crippled M1 Abrams tanks crawling around his feet, crackles of electrical sparks exploding from the hulls of the tanks as the anti-ship sword slashed through them. Kira put the Divinity's toe under the only surviving tank, even as it continued pelting him with fire, and flicked it into the air like a small ball, catching it with the Divinity's GFMG and then hurling it straight up, almost a mile into the air, before Earth's gravity overcame the influence of the momentum and hauled the machine back to the ground, to shatter like it was made of glass upon the rocky ground, the Divinity already having moved a hundred meters further down the valley by the time the tank hit the ground. Kira did make sure to see to it that there were some survivors, because he needed this first demonstration to reach the eyes and ears of the greater Earth Alliance, for the same reason he left one of the recon mobile suits operational deliberately, so that its battle camera would provide visual proof of Kira's new determination.

Three minutes after the Exia had called Kira's bluff, the Divinity stood alone in the valley, surrounded by guttering flames and smoking wreckage, watching the pitiful few survivors fleeing with all possible speed down the slopes of the valley below, in full and unadulterated retreat. The DRAGOON units slowly returned to their docking berths on the Divinity's wings, and Kira crossed the Divinity's arms imperiously across his chest, a stern and unforgiving god of war surveying the carnage he had wrought, and finding it good. A part of him wailed in aunguish over the devastation he'd caused, but that part of him was no more than a dim whisper, buried beneath the ocean of his grief. Gundam Miester Kira Yamato felt a grin tugging its way onto his face. First mission, successful. The first step to eradicating war forever.

_'Forgive me for my actions, but I don't see any other way to go.'_ Kira telepathically spoke to his lovers. _'We've tried words too many times, this ordeal will only be completed if I put my sword where your thoughts are. I love you all and I will make them pay for everything they've done to us! They started this war, but by all my love for you, I WILL end it, forever. They've sown the seeds, and I am the result which they shall reap!'_

After a few moments of silence, the Divinity ignited its thrusters, taking to the air, transforming into its flight mode and streaking towards the horizon.


	67. Love Takes Many Forms

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 67**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

**Author's Note:** 164 decillion = 164 with 33 zeros after it, or 164,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

**Warning:** This chapter contains an extreme lemon, and is not suitable for anyone under the age of 18.

* * *

Kira sighed quietly as he descend to the hanger floor a few hours later, only to be pounced on by Yumi as his feet touched the floor.

"So, you want us to start popping out children for you now?" She asked, her eyes glittering with lust.

"So what if I do?" Kira replied, not ignoring her question, but not really answering it either, even as she dragged him towards the elevator.

"Well, if you do." Yumi replied, dragging Kira into the elevator and entering the code which would allow it to descend into the Inner Sanctum. "All five of us expect you to help."

"Why?" Kira sighed. "All five of you are fully capable of impregnenting each other."

"That may be true." Yumi grinned as the elevator descended. "But it's so much more fun when you are at our mercy."

As the elevator continued to descend, Yumi began releasing pheromones in huge volumes, seeking to subjugate her lover as soon as possible. She could already tell that the drugs which served to keep the potent aphrodisiac; Pink Passion, under control were quickly wearing off. The fact that the controllers were already wearing off didn't surprise her too much, since she had been injected with a highly concontrated dose of the potent aphrodisiac.

The elevator doors silently opened twelve long seconds later and they hurried into the Inner Sanctum. Instead of taking the elevator, however, they took the seldom used stairs down to the living area, or more specifically; to the bedroom. As soon as the door closed behind them, Yumi jerked her husband's pants and boxerss down, and his lovely cock sprung up and bounced off his belly.

She dipped her head, instantly sucking in half of Kira's length, before skillfully rolling her tongue back and forth across the large vein at the base of his cock. She eagerly gobbled him up until she could feel his pubic hair at her nose.

She felt him remove her uniform top as she sucked him. She shrugged and the silk uniform top fluttered to the floor. After a few seconds, she pulled her mouth from his marvelous cock with a slurp, before then tearing the uniform top from his body and jerking him toward the bed.

Yumi smiled seductively as she reached behind her back and unclasped her bra, letting it flutter to the floor, even as she untied her bikini bottoms, letting them fall to the floor as well, finally revealing her perfect body in all of its divine beauty. Yumi grinned as she crawled across the bed on her hands and knees, finally straddling Kira's hips and gently stroking his already hard cock. Yumi grinned teasingly as she continued to lovingly stroke her lover's cock, gradually increasing in speed, stopping on occasion to suck or lick anything that was coming up.

After a few minutes of continous stroking, Kira groaned loudly as he finally reached his climax. Yumi made sure that her mouth was eating his beautiful cock when it happened and she greedily swallowed every drop. With her mouth now full of of her lover's cum, Yumi carefully licked off what she could from Kira's manhood.

Yumi's eyes were sparkling with pure lust as she removed her mouth from her lover's still hard, throbbing cock, quickly straddling him and eagerly impaling herself on her lover's thick manhood. Kira responded instantly, wrapping his right arm around Yumi's waist and pulling her down on top of himself, while running his left hand through her silken ankle-length hair.

Yumi instantly responded to Kira's affection, putting her right arm around his neck, while simultaniously rocking back and forth on his cock. Even as Kira continued to hold Yumi and their mutual arousal continued to quickly heighten, she kept rocking lightly, although her pace was steadily quickening.

Yumi took her head off Kira's shoulder, nuzzled noses with him and kissed him on the lips, while still keeping up the same rhythm. Kira merely smiled as he returned the kiss, and after another twenty seconds, he could feel his arousal approaching its peak.

"Yumi, I'm close." Kira groaned, but she merely looked into her lover's beautiful amethyst eyes and smiled as she rested her head back on his shoulder. Kira groaned in pleasure as he finally reached his orgasm, shooting his sperm deep into Yumi's body. At the first feeling of Kira shooting his cum into her, Yumi also reached her own orgasm.

Kira sighed quietly as he gently held Yumi in his arms, not wanting to let her go as they both fell into a blissful slumber.

Kira woke up a few hours later, only to find that Yumi had was gone. The amethyst-eyed man was quick to find his lover, however, as he walked into the Inner Sanctum's obsevation deck.

The sight that met his eyes was absolutely breathtaking; Yumi silently stood on other side of the observation deck, the glass floor making it appear as though she were floating high above the earth. Yumi had once again extended a pair of feathery, angelic wings from her back, and at the moment, she was quite content to let the soft wings hang limply from her back. Yumi's beautiful hair, which now extended for at least a few dozen miles, if not a few hundred miles, cascaded down her back like a silken waterfall before collecting on the floor around her.

"So, even after all the years we've spent together, you're still hiding some of your fantasies and fetishes from me?" Yumi asked, glancing over her shoulder at her handsome lover.

"Wha-what do you mean, Yumi?" Kira asked, feigning innocence.

"I think you know exactly what I mean, Kira Yamato." Yumi smirked, even as she turned to face the amethyst-eyed man. "Ever since I first discovered your long hair fetish, you've wanted me to make my hair a minimum of one light-year in length, which as you know is equal to nearly 6 trillion miles." She grinned, walking up to Kira and gently wrapping her arms around his waist. Kira's face flushed a deep crimson as he looked away, only for Yumi to gently grab his chin and make him look into her eyes. "All you have to do is ask, Kira." Yumi purred, even as she began to utilize her abilities to steadily lengthen her silken tresses. "If you want me to, I could even lengthen my hair to the current estimated diameter of the universe, which is about; 93 billion light-years." She paused for a short moment, allowing her lover some time with which to consider her proposal, but then she added. "I could also lengthen my hair to the current estimated volume of the universe, which is about; 164 decillion cubic light-years."

Kira could only shiver in a mix of anticipation and amazement. If his beautiful lover was truly serious, and really did end up lengthening her hair to the estimated total volume of the universe, her silken tresses would not only be vying for space with every other object in the universe, but they would also undoubtedly receive a very thorough workout from the various celestial bodies scattered within the void.

"Just think about it, Kira." Yumi seductively grinned, even as she continued to steadily lengthen her beautiful tresses. "Not only will my hair be competing for space with every single object in the universe, but I imagine that the naturally occuring black holes would be able to make my hair even longer still." She smiled sweetly as she continued. "Even if the naturally occuring black holes do nothing more than simply pull my beautiful hair into their event horizon and towards the singularity, it will undoubtedly be the best and most thorough vacuuming that those strands would have ever received. And even then, who's to say that some of my hair won't be ejected from each of the black hole's magnetic poles in the form of relativistic jets?" Yumi smirked, embracing Kira's body with her soft, feathery wings. "Not only would that save some of my hair from being crushed into oblivion within the black hole's singularity, but it would also allow the tresses, which were lucky enough to escape, to lengthen by another several thousand light-years, at least."

"Damnit, Yumi." Kira groaned in frustration as his lover embraced him. "Please, stop teasing me."

"I just need you to answer one simple question, Kira." Yumi smiled. "Do you want me to make my hair span the diameter of the universe, or would you rather have me completely fill the universe with my hair?"

After nearly an entire minute had passed with no answer, Yumi broke her embrace, silently strode towards the window and adjusted the drapes. The sunrays filtering in framed and enhanced her visage, a light smile playing on her lips as she cast a sideways glance at her lover. From his position, by the opposite wall and held captive by his lover's presence, Kira wondered what was coming. Yumi's eyes began taking in every detail of Kira's movements as he waited.

Kira had done nothing more than blink, but by the time he opened his eyes, Yumi had gathered all of her hair into a huge, solid ball, which she held in one hand, a little above the nape of her neck. She stood sideways near the huge window and carefully watched Kira as her other hand helped to keep all that silken hair in place. Kira no longer made any attempt to hide his reactions and stared right back at Yumi, absorbing every one of his lover's movements. The ball of silken hair glittered in Yumi's hand as they both waited for the right moment. Then, without any warning, Yumi's hands suddenly let go, allowing the ball to unfold before them. It was one of the most enchanting spectacles which Kira had ever laid eyes on.

Although he knew what would happen, Kira still wasn't prepared for the sheer magnitude of Yumi's brunette corona, which also had hints of pink, with golden tips. Straight and silky with the slightest hint of a wave, her soft tresses tumbled like an avalanche from chocolate-capped snow peaks. Not unlike a prospector during the gold rush, Kira stood gaping, his mouth dry. It has been etched on his mind forever, for like a zombie, he saw it all as if in slow motion, savouring every moment of the journey that Yumi's fabulous hair had taken as it snaked down to the floor before spreading out around her.

At the start of its journey, the sunlight played joyously with the silken ball of Yumi's hair, and as her soft tresses traversed the distance along the contours of her perfect body, slowly losing momentum at every curve, before finally dissipating at the floor and spreading out. The blonde tips of her hair shone like gold dust. It was incredible, fascinating and unbelievably erotic.

As Kira watched, with his entire being focused and with unconcealed pride, Yumi looked at him, smirking seductively as she lovingly stroked herself with her tresses, driving Kira wild and eliciting a smile from Yumi at her lover's expected reaction.

Yumi quickly walked back to Kira, snaking her arms around his waist, holding his body against her own, even as her feathery wings once again embraced him. She pulled his head down and softly kissed him on the lips. Her own lips were incredibly soft and deliciously warm. For a long moment, the two lovers simply rocked in each other's arms as Yumi planted loving kisses all over Kira's face and neck. Her hair tossed about with every hungry kiss that she gave to her lover, and soon, the silken strands all but covered them both, as if shielding them from all that had been going wrong recently, and heralding the heavenly pleasure that awaited them.

Kira eagerly sank his face into Yumi's hair and deeply inhaled his lover's divine feminine fragrance. His entire body was on fire and they were both breathing heavily. Yumi, of course, was still awaiting a response to her earlier offers of lengthening her hair, having somehow managed to hold back the urge to simply make her hair as long as she wanted, without waiting for Kira's opinion on the matter.

Kira smiled as he slowly walked his fingers about his lover's chin, before then climbing them up to tease her quivering and moaning lips and venturing farther up the reddened cheeks to those lovely long eyelashes that peacefully rested over her closed eyes, and finally, Kira sprinkled Yumi's breath-taking face with many loving kisses.

Responding heartily, Yumi passionately returned Kira's affection and their lips remained inseparable for a long moment. With both hands, Kira lifted as much of Yumi's hair as he could high up above her head, before then releasing it with a flourish. The soft chocolate brown tresses cascaded down Yumi's back, only for Kira to repeat the process again as he sensed his lover's joy at his handling of her hair. She was moaning her obvious approval as Kira's skilled hands made long and tender love to her exceedingly delectable hair, which now extended for nearly 100 miles, and covered the floor to a depth of 15 inches.

Cradling the back of Yumi's head in both hands, Kira massaged her soft scalp sensuously, repeatedly fondling her glorious hair, his fingers delicately wading their way through the soft, brunette tresses, even as he kept nibbling at her full lips, which were now releasing erotic sighs and moans in tandem with her squirming body.

"You never answered my question, Kira." Yumi seductively said, after five full minutes of deep, passionate kissing, during which they had collapsed onto the floor. "Do you want me to make my hair span the diameter of the universe, or would you rather have me completely fill the universe with my hair?" Kira's only response was to plant yet another loving kiss onto his lover's lips. "Well, if you won't answer me, I'll make the decision myself." She grinned, and an instant later, a small black sphere, about the size of a marble, suddenly appeared on the other side of the observation deck.

Kira could only stare in awe as Yumi's beautiful silken tresses were slowly pulled into the small black hole. After a few seconds, Yumi increased the black hole's gravitational force, causing it to suck her hair in even faster, the soft strands quickly forming a thin spiraling ribbon until making contact with the black hole and finally getting sucked into the signularity.

"Why do you insist on teasing me like this?" Kira asked, even as he continued to gently stroke his lover's hair.

"You know you love it, Kira." Yumi giggled. "And since you never answered me, I've decided to fill the entire universe with my hair."

"Wh-what?" Kira asked, clearly in disbelief.

"Just think of it as a birthday present." Yumi seductively purred, before once again kissing him on the lips. "After all, today is May 18th."

"What the hell is that!" One of the Excalibur's bridge crew suddenly yelled, pointing out the windows at the huge mass of writhing chocolate brown hair which had suddenly appeared in the void of space.

"Oh, god." Asuka sighed, palming her face as the writhing mass of brunette hair, which she noticed possessed pink and blonde highlights, instantly engulfed the ship. "Kira finally talked them into it."

"It's nothing to worry about." Misato reassured. "Everyone remain at your stations."

"Do you want me to go down there and stop them?" Lexi asked.

"No, Lexi." Misato replied, her tone of voice leaving no room for argument. "Leave them alone."

"What do you think, Kira?" Yumi asked as she walked up to her lover and gently wrapped her arms around his waist, even as the small black hole at the other end of the observation deck continued to relentlessly draw in her steadily lengthening tresses.

"Yumi, I didn't think it was possible for you to become any more beautiful than you already were." Kira replied, a deep blush staining his cheeks. "And, I'm happy to say that you have proven me wrong."

"Well, I'm glad that I was able to prove you wrong, Kira." Yumi giggled as she took her lover's hand and led him into the salon, and without saying anything, she sat down in one of the chairs and closed her eyes. Kira simply watched Yumi for a few seconds, at least until she spoke up again. "What are you waiting for, Kira?"

"Wh-what do you mean?" The amethyst-eyed man asked.

"I made my hair this long just for you." Yumi smiled as she looked into the mirror, and by extension, into her lover's eyes. "So, I expect you to take care of it for me."

"You can't seriously expect me to be able to take care of all this!" Kira yelled, gesturing to his lover's silken tresses.

"Well, I certainly can't do it." Yumi replied, only for Kira to turn and start walking towards the door. "Where the hell do you think you're going, young man?" Yumi growled, utilizing her powers to instantly shorten her hair to only one mile, wrapping the silken strands tightly around Kira's waist, while simultaneously binding his ankles and securing his wrists behind his back.

With her lover securely restrained, Yumi got out of the salon chair and walked up to Kira, and looking him straight in the eye, she calmly spoke. "You have been a very naughty little boy again, Kira."

"Yes, ma'am!" Kira instantly responded, knowing that when Yumi got like this, it would be better to go along with it, as to fight against her would make the inevitable punishment even worse.

"What happens to naughty little boys?" Yumi asked, her eyes shimmering with lust as she slowly looked her lover's naked body up and down.

"They get spanked, ma'am." The amethyst-eyed man answered.

"How do they get spanked?" Yumi asked, as she walked over to a nearby cabinet, opened the door and produced a large paddle.

"On their bare behind, ma'am." Kira answered, staring in muted horror at the paddle which his lover now wielded. The paddle was made of solid oak, a foot long, with nearly a dozen large steel spikes covering one side, and hundreds of steel needles on the other.

"That's right, young man." Yumi smiled as she walked back to Kira. "And that is exactly what is going to happen to you for not taking care of my hair as I asked."

Standing there completely naked, except for the small portions of his body which Yumi's soft hair concealed, Kira felt totally dominated and humiliated, but it was about to get a lot worse. Yumi sweetly smiled as she effortlessly lifted her lover off the floor with her hair and carried him down into the dungeon.

As Yumi gently laid Kira's naked body down on the bed in the dungeon, a few moments later, he quietly asked. "W-what are you going to do to me, Yumi?"

"I'm going to paddle you for not doing what I asked you to." Yumi answered, even as her silken tresses released him, only to be replaced an instant later, as thick steel restraints clamped shut around his waist, wrists and ankles. "After I am done disserting your punishment, I will once again fill the universe with my hair." She continued, smiling sweetly, although her tone of voice left no room for argument. "And this time you will take care of every inch of my hair."

"What if I can't reach some of your hair?" Kira asked. "If it's been drawn into a naturally occurring black hole, for example."

"I'll allow that to slide." Yumi smiled. "But even so, you will have quite the task ahead of you, although since you have a very strong fetish for long hair, I'm sure that you'll accept the challenge this time."

Kira knew he had misbehaved by refusing to take care of his lover's silky hair, and that he deserved to be punished. He also knew that Yumi had both the right and the responsibility to give him the spanking he deserved, and that she was woman enough to do it. She also had the right to enjoy it and she definitely would. Of course, what he thought really didn't matter. Kira was going to be soundly spanked by his beautiful lover, Yumi, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Now, with Kira completely restrained and ready to be spanked, it was time for Yumi to get ready herself. For several reasons, Yumi always wanted to spank Kira while they were both naked. She liked the idea of taunting Kira by allowing him to see her naked body and then spanking him. She also liked the feel of his naked body squirming and wiggling against her own as she spanked him. She felt it was another symbol of control. Once she was naked there would be nothing to protect her and yet Kira wouldn't be able to stop her as she took him off to the dungeon to be spanked by her. And finally, Yumi believed that one of the most beautiful sights in the world was a beautiful, naked woman leading a handsome, naked, submissive man off to be spanked, and then spanking him.

There was probably not a man alive that would not love to see the sight of Yumi, standing there in all her naked beauty. Yumi had a perfect figure, one which most women would die for. She had a nice rounded face, with pretty eyes and luscious lips. Below her full, curving breasts and nipples, was a smooth abdomen with no signs of fat, a thin waist, nicely curved hips, and soft, long perfectly tapered thighs.

Kira, however, looked at her differently. In her eyes, Kira could see the calm determined look of a dominant woman on a mission. Her luscious lips would announce that the time of his punishment has arrived, and, sometimes, she would even taunt and torment him during his spanking. Kira's amethyst eyes focused on Yumi's smooth bare thighs, which he would soon be lying over helplessly, like a naughty little boy. He glanced at her arms knowing that the left one would hold his naked body in place over her bare thighs while her right arm would wield the paddle.

Yumi could easily see, by simply looking into Kira's eyes, the look of feared anticipation and helplessness in his own. It was the look of complete submissiveness to her more dominant nature. There was no doubt that he feared what was about to come, and he knew that there was no way out of his punishment. He knew he had been naughty and deserved to be punished and his beautiful wife was about to give it to him. Yumi, whom was now gently running her left pointer finger down Kira's chest, looked straight into his eyes as the thick metal restraints released his nude body.

Yumi then sat down with Kira standing helplessly by her side. Kira looked down at her, sitting there in all her naked beauty, although his eyes were focused on her smooth, bare thighs, which he would soon be lying naked over. Yumi looked up at him and smiled confidently as she took hold of his left arm, and calmly pulled his naked body down over her bare thighs.

As Kira watched helplessly, Yumi raised her right hand high in the air and brought it down quickly, landing with a loud smack on his left bare bottom cheek. Although it was only her hand, it still stung, and Kira's body reacted, squirming against Yumi's own body. Yumi loved to see the look in his eyes as her hand landed on his bare behind. Before he could fully recover, she was already landing another smack on his right bare bottom cheek, and again his body reacted.

Yumi quickly settled into a pattern of landing hard smacks all over Kira's unprotected bare behind. It took very little time before Kira's naked body began to squirm uncomfortably against Yumi, as smack after smack of her hand landed on his bare behind. This was of course, why Yumi wanted them both naked for his spanking. She could both see and feel her husband's naked body squirming and wiggling against hers, and it would let her know how well she was getting through to him. The harder and longer her smacks became, the harder and faster his body would squirm and wiggle against her own.

Kira could also feel his body squirming and wiggling as he was being spanked, but he obviously felt quite different about it.

Yumi was in full form now as her hand continued to smack his bare behind over and over again, covering every inch of it. Kira's bare bottom was now turning a bright red, as her smacks landed non-stop on his upturned behind. Much to Yumi's delight, the more she smacked Kira's bare bottom, the more his body squirmed and wiggled against her own beautiful body. Kira had hoped that his squirming and wiggling would lessen the blows or avoid them, but to no avail.

It would be almost a full five minutes of non-stop hand spanking before Yumi paused briefly. Her hand was sore, as was Kira's bare behind, but her pleasure made her unaware of her pain. Kira was certainly aware of the pain in his bare bottom, but unfortunately for him, it was about to get a lot worse.

Kira watched in fear as Yumi finally picked up the paddle, positioning it so that the large metal spikes were pointing towards his unprotected behind, and once again, he was completely helpless, as Yumi raised the paddle high into the air and brought it down quickly, landing with a loud smack on his bare bottom, the metal spikes digging into his soft flesh. Ten agonizingly long minutes later, Yumi finally stopped paddling her lover's soft behind, confident that he would now obey her without any hesitation.

"Now, you will do exactly as I tell you." Yumi said, gently pulling Kira off her lap and looking into his eyes. "Because, if you don't follow my orders, I will be forced to paddle you again, is that understood, Kira?"

"Y-yes, ma'am." Kira sniffled, even as tears continued to slip from his eyes.

"Good boy." Yumi smiled, even as a small black sphere, about the size of a marble, suddenly appeared on the other side of the dungeon.

Kira once again stared silent in awe as Yumi's beautiful silken tresses quickly formed a thin spiraling ribbon until once more making contact with the black hole and finally getting sucked into the singularity.

"Yumi, how exactly do you expect me to tend to your hair if most of it will be completely beyond my reach?" Kira asked, gesturing towards the black hole, but his question was answered an instant later, as he was suddenly blinded by a flash of white light.

When his vision cleared a moment later, Kira was treated to the sight of Yumi standing a few feet in front of him, still completely naked, with her feathery, angelic wings hanging limply from her back. Yumi's beautiful hair, which now extended for 164 decillion light-years, cascaded down her back like a silken waterfall before then extending for as far as the eye could see.

Kira quickly looked around, noticing that the room which he and Yumi were in greatly resembled the salon within the Inner Sanctum, complete with five salon chairs, with mirrors, counters, any and all necessary combs, brushes, sprays, not to mention three wet/dry shop vacuums, a pair of upright vacuums and a large bathtub/shower where hair could be washed and shampooed. As he continued to look around, Kira noticed that the floor of the huge room consisted mostly of white tile, but he didn't fail to notice the large bed off to his right, which sat on a beautiful gold and silver rug.

As Kira was busy taking in his new surroundings, Yumi had sat down on the nearest salon chair, letting out a soft sigh as she reclined the seatback and began to relax. She knew that Kira wouldn't be able to resist his long hair fetish for more than a few minutes, she knew that he would eventually give in to his desires and begin brushing her hair, she just had to be patient as she displayed both her hair and her body, in full view of her handsome lover.

Finally, after nearly a full minute had passed, Kira moved to the counter in front of Yumi, silently picking up a large paddle brush before then moving to stand directly behind his lover as she sat in the salon chair.

"You don't have to rush." Yumi giggled as Kira began to hurriedly run the brush through her silken tresses. "The passage of time is very different here."

"What do you mean?" Kira asked, slightly slowing the speed at which he was brushing his lover's soft tresses.

"One billion years in here is equal to only one second onboard the Excalibur." Yumi answered. "And you can't leave here unless I let you." She added as Kira continued to lovingly run the brush through her silky hair. "So, you really have only two options; you can continue to brush my hair and make me happy, or you can stop and I can punish you again."

"Yumi, would you at least let me use one of the vacuum cleaners since your hair is so long?" Kira asked after a moment of silence.

"No, you will have to earn the privilege of being allowed to use any of the vacuum cleaners on my hair, Kira." Yumi answered with a relaxed sigh. "And at the moment, you have a lot of work to do before you even get close to earning the privilege of being allowed to vacuum my hair." Kira blushed, silently nodding as he continued to lovingly brush Yumi's soft tresses.

"What did you mean when you said that I can't leave unless you let me?" Kira asked a moment later, even as he bent down and took his lover's silken hair into his hands, as it would be much easier to brush if he was holding it, rather than kneeling on the floor, since Yumi wouldn't yet allow him to use any of the vacuum cleaners.

"I mean exactly that, Kira." Yumi seductively smiled. "You aren't able to leave this room unless I let you."

"Are you telling me that you've disabled all of my powers?" Kira asked, knowing that his lover had that ability.

"No, silly." Yumi answered with a giggle. "I've only disabled your ability to teleport. After all, I want you to be able to make my hair even longer than it currently is, if you should desire to do so." In truth, not only could Yumi disable each and every one of Kira's powers, he also could do the same to her. Although, out of courtesy and their mutual love for each other, they never disabled each other's immortality or regeneration.

Yumi purred in contentment as Kira continued to lovingly brush the thick cape of hair which fell behind her to the floor, and went back for as far as the eye could see. Finally, Kira was no longer able to restrain himself, and he began to wrap himself in his lover's beautiful hair. The amethyst-eyed man let out a blissful sigh as he quickly embraced himself with Yumi's soft locks, the silken tresses covering his legs, then his waist, and finally his arms; he could smell its clean scent and feel its weight against his body.

After simply savoring the feeling and smell of his lover's soft tresses for a moment, Kira grabbed a wide, heavy cloth strap from where it lay on the floor. It was silk on the outside, and about a foot across, but it was a little heavier than normal silk, and on the underside, were millions of wheels. Without pausing for so much as a second, he threw the strap over to the other side of Yumi's hair, even as hundreds of Lexi's holograms appeared, doing the same thing from each side. Then they pulled on the straps, and more silk appeared from underneath, forming a cocoon around Yumi's hair, and finally, Kira, along with Lexi's holograms, were able to tie off the straps, forming a silk tube about three feet in diameter and slightly longer than Yumi's silken strands. Finally, with their task completed, Lexi's holograms vanished.

Although the silk cocooning Yumi's tresses currently took the form of a large tube, it could also be sealed along its entire length and at the end, forming a huge bag that could then be used to allow her beautiful tresses to soak in any number of various liquids. Kira, however, had plans for the silken tube that now surrounded his lover's hair. In its current form, the huge silk tube could be utilized in multiple ways; from making it easier for Yumi to transport her masses of beautiful hair from one place to another, to being used as a huge sleeping bag, which could hold multiple occupants. Kira had the latter idea in mind, as he was planning on crawling into the far end of the tube and completely surrounding himself with his lover's hair. After a moment of thought, however, Lexi's holograms reappeared, quickly freeing Yumi's hair from the silk cocoon, before once again vanishing.

"You're so beautiful." Kira smiled into the mirror, and by extension at Yumi, as he walked behind her and once again resumed brushing her hair. And this time, he was determined not to stop brushing Yumi's silken tresses until he had completed his self-assigned task of running the bristles of the brush through every inch and every single strand of his lover's beautiful hair.


	68. United Planet

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 68**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

"So in the end, we have to spill even more blood in order to stop this?" Kira Yamato snarled, shutting his visor as the Divinity moved to the Excalibur's catapult, while the Akatsuki, Blitz, Buster, Chimera, DEEP Arms, Destiny, Freedom, Gaia, Impulse, Infinite Justice, Strike Freedom and Wing Zero Gundams were all brought online.

Across the hanger from the Divinity Gundam, the Wing Gundam Zero's eyes lit up with a bright green light, the machine having been assigned to Lexi, the Excalibur's advanced AI. Technically, the machine was actually being controlled by the Excalibur's main computer and not from the cockpit of the Gundam itself, but even so Lexi was projecting her vestige, clad in a gold and black flight suit, into the cockpit of the Wing Gundam Zero, making it appear as though there really was a pilot inside the machine.

"Human stupidity is a very powerful force." Shinn Asuka replied as he moved the Eclipse Gundam onto one of the Excalibur's few dual launch catapults. "It's sad really."

"It is indeed sad." Athrun Zala agreed as he moved his Infinite Justice Gundam onto another of the Excalibur's many catapults. "But all we can do now is fight."

"It may be sad." Lunamaria Hawke replied as her Twilight Gundam took its place beside the Eclipse Gundam on the dual launch catapult, the two machines intertwining their hands as the pilots waited for clearence to launch. "But considering how far this war has already gone..." She trailed off, not wanting to think about the nuclear missile which had hit Pearl Harbor, or any of the other atrocities which had been commited during this war.

"My first true fight." Lexi whispered to herself as she quickly yet carefully moved the Wing Gundam Zero to the catapult on the Divinity Gundam's left side.

"Divinity, Eclipse, Infinite Justice, Twilight, Wing Zero, you're all cleared for launch." Meyrin Hawke announced a few seconds later, her voice resounding throughout the hanger. Even though Meyrin was currently acting as the Excalibur's combat information controller, directing the mobile suits in the hanger and clearing them for launch, she would be launching into battle soon, in her custom GuAIZ Experimental Firearms Type.

"Everyone ready?" Kira asked.

"Yes sir!" The millions of pilots choursed in perfect unison.

"Kira Jesus Yamato." The amethyst-eyed man called. "Divinity Gundam, god-complex returning."

"Lexi Yamato. Wing Gundam Zero, launching!"

"Cagalli Yula Athha, Akatsuki Gundam, heading out!"

"Hope Yamato, Destiny Gundam, I'm a pretty butterfly!"

"Lacus Clyne, Chimera Gundam, launching!"

"Mayu Asuka, Destiny Impulse Gundam, heading out!"

"Murrue Ramius, Strike Freedom Gundam, taking off!"

"Shiho Hahnenfuss, DEEP Arms Gundam, launching!"

"Kira Yamato, Freedom Gundam, let's do it!"

"Athrun Zala, Infinite Justice Gundam, taking off!"

"Shinn Asuka, Eclipse Gundam, heading out!"

"Lunaramia Hawke, Twilight Gundam, taking off!"

"Dearka Elsman, Buster Gundam, launching!"

"Nicol Amalfi, Blitz Gundam, heading out!"

"Andrew Waltfeld, Gaia Gundam, launching!"

The Gundams launched, along with many, many more machines as the Excalibur shot mobile suits and aircraft out of its hanger bays like missiles.

"I, sir, am offended at your remote controlled weaponry!" Luna scowled within the cockpit of the Twilight Gundam, as nearly a dozen grey DRAGOON units swarmed around her. The weapons had been launched by the Alliance's new GAT-X13S-666A Execution Gundam, although in truth, the Alliance machine was nothing more than a Legend Gundam on steroids. Luna smirked as the remote weapons suddenly stopped firing a few seconds later and dropped from the sky, as the Eclipse Gundam fired its twin buster rifle, the blindingly bright column of yellow energy instantly engulfing and vaporizing the Execution Gundam.

"Surprise, bitch!" Kira roared as the Divinity Gundam suddenly appeared out of thin air, grabbing a Strike Dagger out of the sky and slamming it to the ground. The female Earth Alliance pilot watched in horror as the angel-winged machine's physical shield split down the middle, and an instant later, a solid blade emerged from within the Divinity's shield, stabbing straight into the cockpit armor of the pinned Strike Dagger, the blade begining to glow with heat as it slowly forced its way through the armor.

The Divinity's heat blade suddenly stabbed forward, splitting the female alliance pilot in two at the waist, the wound immediately cauterized by the heat as the blade pierced out of the Strike Dagger's back. The Divinity's eyes flashed with a bright amethyst light as the angelic machine finally released the Strike Dagger and flew away as it exploded.

Even before the explosion caused by the Strike Dagger's destruction faded, the Divinity had ignited its thrusters and flown away, the angel-winged machine now moving to assist the ZGMF-X19A Infinite Justice Gundam piloted by Athrun Zala, and the YFX-600R GuAIZ Experimental Firearms Type piloted by Meyrin Hawke.

Meyrin's GuAIZ Experimental Firearms Type had been highly customized by its pilot, partially evidenced by the light green and soft pink color scheme which its armor now displayed. The former ZAFT mobile suit now sported Mirror Coated Phase Shift armor, a pair of beam shield generators on the forearms, a beam cannon in each palm, a beam claw on each knuckle, a rocket anchor in each hand and foot, and, in keeping with the machine's experimental desigination, it had also been outfitted with a prototype propulsion system known as transwarp.

"When will this end?" Meyrin growled, combining her beam rifles and sniping the still approaching enemy mobile suit forces, which consisted of machines from multiple diffrent universes, a direct result of the severly fractured timeline on and near the planet. Among the mobile suits were GAT-01A1 Daggers and GAT-04 Windams from the Cosmic Era, GNX-704T Aheads, SVMS-01 Union Flags and GNX-803T GN-XIVs from the Anno Domini Era, OZ-06MS Leos, OZ-07AMS Aries, WF-02MD Virgo IIs and WF-12SMS Tauruses from the After Colony Era and rounding out the attacking forces were MS-05B Zaku Is, MS-06F Zaku IIs, MS-07B Goufs, MS-09 Doms, MS-14A Gelgoogs, MSM-03 Goggs, MSM-04 Acguys, MSM-07 Z'Goks as well as a pair of MA-08 Big Zam mobile armors from the Universal Century.

"So, everyone has united and is attacking us, are they?" Kira scowled within the Divinity's cockpit as the two Big Zam mobile armors opened fire on the Excalibur with their primary beam cannons, both of the bright yellow beam blasts dissipating harmlessly against the shields of the massive warship. The Excalibur instantly responded to the two attackers, lashing out at the pair of mobile armors with millions of beam blasts from its Lohengrin positron blaster cannons and Gottfried high-energy beam cannons.

"What the...?" Shinn Asuka started, as the Gelgoog he was about to disable suddenly boosted to the left, revealing the Divinity Gundam's distinctive pink and green beam sword as it swung towards him. "Holy shit!" The crismon-eyed man yelled, barely dodging the Divinity's slash. Shinn glared at the Divinity as it severed the Gelgoog's head and kicked the now disabled machine away, leaving it to slam into and topple a pair of charging Leos. At that moment, a transport plane appeared on the radar. Shinn ignited his thrusters and sped towards the craft, but as he raised his rifle, it was speared by a pair of glowing green beam blasts from the Divinity Gundam. Shinn growled as he dropped the rifle, watching as the weapon exploded in mid-air and the trasnport, which according to his sensors was transporting nearly three tons of weapons-grade plutonium, sped away from the battlefield.

"I don't want to fight you, Shinn." Kira quietly sighed a few hours later, as the Divinity Gundam stood on the Excalibur's deck, facing the Eclipse Gundam, the two machines glaring at each other from a distance of only six meters. "The battle is over, by most accounts, Celestial Being has won. Our losses have been severe, but we're not the only ones that have suffered. The Earth Alliance losses are at least equal to our own."

"Don't talk to me about losses! Not when they nuked those poor helpless civilians at Pearl Harbor, and certainly not now that, thanks to you, the Allaince will soon have more nuclear weapons at their disposal! We may have won the battle, but victory isn't what it used to be. Not with those damned nukes around." Shinn retorted. "You may not want to fight me, I know that you have an oath about not killing most people, but I'd advise you to forget such a thing, it has no place on a real battlefield."

"If I had a dime for every time someone has told me that..." Kira said wearily. "You fight your way, and if you force me, I'll fight mine. I really just want to go back to all of our friends and family, who are worried about us." Upon reflection, mentioning family might not have been the most diplomatic of moves.

"Family? FAMILY! You bastard! You stole my family from me all those years ago! You and Cagalli's precious fight for ideals of peace. You dare speak to me of seeing FAMILY!" Shinn screamed, his voice so raw with pain that Kira actually flinched slightly. He was forced to gun his thrusters and dodge aside as Shinn opened fire. Kira had to grant the pilot of the Eclipse Gundam this much; he may have been emotionally unstable at the moment, but he didn't let it interfere with his shooting. Kira was actually having to work a bit to dodge the blasts.

"Stop it, Shinn. I don't want to fight you!" Kira insisted.

"Then stand still and let me kill you, you son of a bitch!" Shinn rasped, activating his beam swords. "I'll cut you into a hundred steaming little pieces."

"I can't let you do that either." Kira said sadly. Shinn laughed.

"I don't see how you're going to stop me. You can't keep away from me forever." Shinn chuckled slightly as the Eclipse disappeared from view. "Especially when I use the Mirage Colloid. You'll barely be able fight back at all!"

"I wouldn't be so confident in that asessment." Kira said coldly. It was very faint, but in atmosphere Mirage Colloid was slightly less effective than in space, there was the tiniest of blurs in the air around the outline of the Eclipse, barely noticable to the unaided eye. Most pilots would have ignored it as heat haze or an optical illusion. Kira was not most pilots. Shinn charged forward, beam sabers both going high for a pair of downward slashes. Kira abrupdtly reversed thrust and charged forward, planting one foot down and lifting his right knee squarely into the chest of the Eclipse, tossing the machine backwards to land on its back, mangling the beam turret. Shinn started to roll to his feet, but Kira gave him no chance, in a blur of movement the Divinity's right leg came back down and stomped on the right wrist of the Eclipse, crushing the connection to the hand and severing it with a loud crunch! Kira's rail guns pivoted out and downward and blew the Eclipse's legs off at mid-thigh, shorting out the Mirage Colloid. Shinn made a desperate prone swing with his last beam saber, but Kira flipped the Divinity completely over the wild swing and kicked the beam saber out of his hand as it righted itself like an acrobat. "Please, Shinn, you've lost. Don't force me to disable you completely." Kira pleaded, aiming his beam rifles, plasma cannons and rail guns at the Eclipse's head.


	69. Temporal Insanity

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 69**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

"Shinn, where are you going?" Athrun asked as he followed the hot-headed coordinator through the winding halls of the Excalibur.

"I'm going to give Kira a piece of my mind! The son of a bitch nearly killed me!" Shinn spat. "Aren't you forgetting, Shinn, you can't die you're immortal." Athrun reasoned as they reached one of the Excalibur's inner trams.

"Computer, locate Kira Yamato!" Shinn ordered as he stepped on to the tram.

"Supreme Commander Kira Yamato is currently in the captain's private quarters on the officer's deck." Shinn huffed as he pressed the touch pad that would send the tram to the officer's quarters. Due to the massive size of the Excalibur, a high speed tram system had to be installed on each deck. Five minutes and one stop later, they arrived at the tram station at the officers quarters.

"Alright, where is he!" Shinn fumed as he stormed down the hall to Kira's shared quarters.

"Shinn, aren't you taking things a little too personally?" Athrun said as he followed close behind. Shinn instantly spun around and faced Athrun, his ruby eyes burning with anger.

"He shot down my Eclipse Gundam you moron, why wouldn't I take it personally!" He shouted.

"He only did that because you were about to shoot down a cargo plane that was full of refugees!" Athrun countered, he was starting to lose his temper.

"That plane had nuclear materials on board and you know it." Shinn said as he turned back around and resumed walking to towards his destination.

"Did you even look at the thermal and x-ray scans? The nuclear materials had already been removed and the plane was being used to evacuate wounded civilians." Athrun said as he cut in front of Shinn, blocking his way.

"What's all the yelling?" Came a tired voice, Athrun and Shinn turned to see Athrun's fiancée Meyrin Hawke poking her head out of hers and Athrun's shared room.

Athrun quickly walked over to her and gave her an apologetic hug. "Sorry, Meyrin, did we wake you?" He asked as he loosened his grip.

"No, but damn it Shinn, why are you always so loud?" She said as she looked at him. "Honestly, sometimes I wonder what my sister sees in you."

"I don't have time for this right now. I'm leaving!" Shinn spat as he resumed stomping down the hall. Just as he reached the door to Kira's quarters, both Athrun and Meyrin stopped him.

Athrun stood in front of the door while Meyrin stood behind him. "Shinn, I realize now that you won't listen to reason, but let me talk to Kira for you." He offered. "If you really must gripe to him, wait until the briefing we have later."

Shinn huffed and crossed his arms as he leaned against the wall. "Fine, but I'll be right here until you get back." He said.

"Thanks, Shinn. Meyrin, would you please stay with him?" Arthun asked as he pressed the switch that opened the door with a hiss. Athrun walked inside, instantly noticing that the room was dark. "Kira?" Athrun called out, and when he was met with no answer he walked further into the room. Unlike standard crew quarters, the officers state rooms consisted of a small office where the entrance was connected to a bedroom and bathroom. "Kira, are you in here?" Athrun called again, but still no answer. He walked over to the door which led into the bedroom and opened it. The bedroom was also dark. "Kira...?" Athrun whispered, but he stopped in his tracks as he laid eyes on the single large bed.

Kira was laying in the middle of the bed, he was fast asleep and all of his lovers were with him, all of whom were also sound asleep. Kira lay in the middle of the bed with Murrue at his left side, cuddled up close to him. Lacus was opposite of Murrue, on Kira's right. Next to Murrue lay Hope and Mayu, whom were huddled together, sleeping peacefully as they lay on their sides. Athrun also noticed Cagalli asleep and clinging to Mayu, with her arms wrapped around Mayu's waist. Athrun became even more shocked when he thought that he saw a second Cagalli asleep beside Lacus, the only difference was that she looked to be a few years younger.

Kira stirred as he sat up, being extremely careful not to wake any of the women around him. "Athrun...What's wrong?" Kira asked groggily.

"Um...eh...I-uh..." Athrun stammered trying to find words. Just then Lacus yawned and sat up causing the sheets to slip from her chest, exposing her bust for all to see. Athrun couldn't stop his jaw from dropping, but he was able to somewhat compose himself, despite the fact that his former fiancée was now looking at him with that bright smile hers and she was either completely oblivious to the fact that she was exposed to him or she simply didn't care. Athrun's face turned a dark shade of red as he noticed a small barbell piercing in her left nipple.

"Hello, do you need something, Athrun?" She asked.

"Uh...Shinn's...outside. Kira he wanted to talk to you about the last engagement..." Athrun stammered. Kira sighed in annoyance.

"Tell him that he can gripe all he wants at the briefing later today. Now could you tell him to report back to his post before I have him thrown in the brig for insubordination?" Kira said as he scratched the back of his head.

"Uh...sure. I'm...going to go now...Sorry for intruding." Athrun said as he left. Once outside Kira's room, he shut to door and Shinn and Meyrin. Both of them noticed the deep blush on Athrun's face as he shut to door behind him.

"Well?" Shinn asked.

"You're ordered to return to your station and wait until the briefing before you are thrown in the brig." Athrun replied.

"WHAT!" Shinn bellowed in disbelief.

"Lets go, Shinn." Athrun said as he pushed Shinn back towards the tram station. "See you on the bridge, baby." He said to Meyrin before she returned to their room to get ready for her shift.

When Kira Yamato had just started flying the Strike his emotions had been all over the place. That had changed once he descended to the desert, except for when Tolle died. Things had heated him back up during the fights up in space after the Mendel colony, but after that he'd mellowed out again. It had taken the destruction of the Freedom Gundam to really set him off. Of course, reliving both the First and Second Bloody Valentine Wars had gotten a rise out of him, but that had been mostly adrenaline and slight shock, not just anger and it certainly wasn't because of fear. Now, millenia after first piloting the GAT-X105 Strike Gundam, Kira was a God, he was immotral and he could do anything he wanted without fear of consequences. Despite these changes, he still acted completely human, he still displayed the full range of emotions, he still ate and slept.

At the moment, Kira felt slight anger mixed with a bit of annoyance, as he sat in the Excalibur's main conference room, at the head of the table with his most trusted pilots and senior officers in the room with him.

"What's your excuse for shooting down my Eclipse Gundam in the last battle, Kira?" Shinn Asuka asked.

"Not this again." Athrun Zala muttered under hs breath.

"I only did that because you were about to shoot down a cargo plane that was full of refugees." Kira answered, at the moment, the amethyst-eyed man had his temper under control, but he wasn't sure how long that would last.

"That plane had nuclear materials on board and we all know it!" Shinn yelled.

"No." Kira replied, as he brought up a holographic image of the shuttle in question. The shuttle resembeled a highly modified Boeing 747-8, a large commercial airliner and civilian transport aircraft from the late 1900s, with the main differences between the original aircraft and the shuttle version, being hybrid jet/rocket engines in place of the standard jet engines, and the addition of a vertical stabilizer on the tips of the wings and tailpanes. The shuttle in question had been painted in white and brown, with a yellow line running diagionally down the rear half of the fuselage, seperating the other two colors. "As you can all plainly see." Kira said, pointing to the Universal Postal Service logo on each of the shuttle's five vertical stabilizers. "The shuttle was owned by the Universal Postal Service, they never transport military cargo of any kind, they don't even transport military personnel." The Universal Postal Service was the primary mail and package delivery service used by civilians both in the PLANTs and on the Earth, the predecessor of which had been known as the United Postal Service; the primary mail and package delivery service used in the United States of America, at least until that country's complete economic collapse in the year 2012.

"Either way." Cagalli Yula Athha finally spoke up. "The fighting is only continuing to escalate."

"We could always perform the ultimate armed intervention." Hope Yamato suggested. "Eradicating humanity and repopulating the Earth by ourselves."

"We've already eradicated humanity twice in the past." Lacus Clyne replied, tears quickly welling up in her eyes. "I don't want to do it again."

"If all of the armed forces on this planet decide to attack us again, I'll do just that." Kira smirked. "Although, given the fractured timelines on and around the Earth, it would probably be much more efficent, not to mention easier, if we just find our own planet and colonize it ourselves."

Everyone in the conference room jumped slightly as Kira's cell phone rang, startling them. He pulled the ringing phone out of his uniform pocket and put it up to his ear.

"Hello?" He asked, there was no response to his greeting at first, but then, finally, a voice came over the line.

"Hey." A male voice said, the person obviously of college age. "Who's this?"

"Kira Yamato." Kira replied, confused.

"Oh, sorry, wrong number." The other man replied, then hung up.

Kira lowered the phone slowly and leaned back in his chair. That was strange. Now completely distracted from the meeting, he looked at his received calls list, but the number was unfamiliar. Before he could think on it further, the phone rang loudly, shocking everyone yet again. This time, Kira looked at the caller identification before answering. It was another unfamiliar number. This time, he held the phone up to his ear, but said nothing. He heard nothing but the general background noise of a phone.

After a few seconds, Kira could hear slow, deliberate knocking. A moment later, he heard a door rip from its hinges and the dying screams of whomever was on the other end.

"WITNESS!" A little girl's voice screamed over the phone line. Kira quickly hung up.


	70. Indiscriminate Retaliation

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 70**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

Ace pilot Char Aznable continued along his ordained path of destruction through the city of Heliopolis in Orb, his highly customized, red Gelgoog rampaging through the city streets with wild abandon. He was starting to grow bored though, smashing buildings and crushing cars and people was rapidly losing its novelty after about ten minutes of doing it. Sure, it was exhilirating and empowering, walking through the city like a god, crushing whatever he wanted whenever he wanted, letting people live or die as he saw fit, but it wasn't nearly so fun when he didn't have anyone to lord it over that really understood. He needed to beat someone into the ground and leave them begging for mercy on their knees before him. That would make everything much better. The only problem was that the only other mobile suits around were allies and well outside his range regardless. In a slight fit of rage he jammed one of his hands into the side of a nearby skyscraper, spillings tons of crumbled and broken masonry onto the streets below, like a man might tear through a snow sculpture. "Something interesting better happen soon or I'm going to do something DRASTIC!" Char announced to all over his external speakers. He received no reply. He checked his sensors and scowled, noticing how all the tall buildings, made of concrete and metal, were playing havoc with his radar and other sensors. His radar barely reached farther than his cameras did while he was down on street level.

Fortunately for the thousands of innocent and terrified people within the several block immediate radius of the Gelgoog, two such interesting things as Char was looking for were rapidly approaching from the harbor area, flying just above the tops of the buildings. The Wing Gundam Zero led the Buster Gundam by perhaps a half mile, though it was the Buster that was doing the searching for the enemy, with its superior sensor suite. Not that it was extraordinarily difficult to locate the Gelgoog. They just headed towards the most recent looking plumes of dust and smoke and within minutes the massive thermal contact that could only be the Gelgoog appeared on the Buster's screen. "Well, I won't say I'm looking forward to this engagement." Dearka commented sourly, eyes sweeping the ground below, tightly packed with all sorts of large buildings, ranging from hotels to office complexes to multi-story malls and shopping plazas. "I never really trained for something like this."

"Yeah, the ZAFT training scenario planners somehow neglected to include the possibility of a mobile suit battle inside a city fully populated with civilians. I wonder why?" Lexi's holographic image retorted sarcastically from within the cockpit of the Wing Zero. "It's not like we're here because we have any other choice."

"Can't you just let me gripe in peace? That was a rhetorical complaint. It did not require an analysis." Dearka responded.

"Require or not, it received one."

Miriallia did her best to tune out their bickering, it was a distraction to her and right now she did not feel she could stand any distractions at all. The last time she'd been in combat in Orb, she'd been safe, relatively speaking, aboard the Archangel, while her friends went out and did the bulk of the fighting. Now she was going up close and personal with the enemy in her own home nation. She was just glad it wasn't her home city, since her stomach was doing flip flops as it was. And this enemy was worse than any individual whom she had formerly feared and hated. Dearka and Athrun did not exult in the killing of their enemies. They were soldiers, fighting other soldiers, and death was just part of that equation. There was only rarely personal emotion brought onto the field of battle. Quite the opposite with Char, with him, every battle was personal, every death was a victory he had to announce and display to the rest of the world. And that was why he had to die, and the sooner the better. "Coming up on the Gelgoog now. We're three miles out and closing. No sign that he has spotted us yet." She announced, swallowing an enormous dry lump that had suddenly appeared in her throat.

"So how do we want to do this?" Dearka asked, his voice turning calm and serious as he transformed himself from the loving, kind and friendly Dearka she was so much in love with, to the fierce and cold ZAFT soldier she knew from the battles with the Archangel. "The Buster isn't well equipped for close range fighting, as I only have a pair of wrist-mounted beam sabers. Even then, more than half my weapons are no goes down on the city streets. He may not care much about civilian casualties, but I can't just go spraying fire around indiscriminately."

"I'm not sure you or I have a choice in that regard. We have to decide; is it worth the risk to ourselves and the civilians to limit ourselves when we fight him? Is it better to try and defeat him over a longer period of time or quick and bloody, which will result in higher risk to the civilian population?" Lexi replied. "Like you said, he won't be holding back."

"Damn it. That fucker is using the city like a shield, even if he doesn't know it." Dearka swore. "Look at this senseless destruction. Why would anyone...no, no I won't say something so obvious. Because that's the sort of person he is, that's why."

"When there is no good option, you can only go with what you think is best at the moment." Miriallia said, her heart and voice heavy. "That machine is twenty meters of destruction and doom made tangible. We cannot hold ourselves back. It tears at me to say it, but we have to go all out and just hope we can bring him down before too much damage occurs."

Char idly thrust the barrels of his dual hyper impulse cannon into the side of a building, tearing a huge gouge along it as he swung the heavy cannon forward and out, demolishing two floors and leaving the whole fifteen story structure leaning drunkenly forward about halfway up. He turned his torso to look down a side street and fired his six beam cannons, the greenish rays of heat energy carving molten trenches through the buildings and street, annihilating the unarmored civilian cars and trucks they happened to brush over in balls of fire and greasy smoke. Perhaps a hundred people who had been fleeing down this street went up in smoke and flames with the cars, their bodies ignited by the unimaginable heat, most dying before they even had a chance to voice their agony through lungs of ash. Char rotated his torso again, almost one hundred and eighty degrees, facing another skyscraper, this one almost thirty stories tall. At least he never really had to worry about running out of new targets in a city. He smiled as he saw the horrified expressions on the faces of office workers looking out through the glass windows at the Gelgoog. Plainly they either had not heard the word to evacuate or had elected to stay inside, thinking themselves safer there. A false impression he was glad he could relieve them of. The four 20mm CIWS guns in the head of the Gelgoog spun up to speed, while the other four CIWS guns mounted on his back also activated and began to swing about. Without further ado, Char opened fire, the front CIWS raking the office building with hundreds of relatively small caliber shells, though each was more than enough to blow an armored human in half, while the back CIWS blasted away at the facades of other buildings and the street in random fire patterns, not really aimed at anything in specific.

Windows shattered in a hail of gleaming shards that fell like ice crystals to the streets far below, the deluge joined moments later by a rain of furniture, rubble, bodies and pieces of bodies as the explosive bullets hammered into the office building, walking back and forth along its entire length as the Gelgoog slowly turned its head. Hundreds and then thousands of people started flooding out of the ground level exits of the building, pointing and screaming as they tried to flee from their deaths. The paths of many of the panicked people brought them into the artifical storm falling down from the heights above, with people being crushed by desks and cabinets and cut to pieces by panes of glass that shattered like fragmentation grenades when they hit the streets. Most of the people though, ran away from the Gelgoog, filling the two lane street almost solid as they raced towards a T-junction about two hundred meters ahead. Char slowly turned, the CIWS guns silent for a moment as he adjusted his aim. Time seemed to freeze, a painting of atrocity just prior to commencement, the crowd of people, trampling their own friends and co-workers in desperation as they ran, the Gelgoog, almost gloating as its weapons spun and hummed in the morning air.

Char's fingers were just touching the triggers when a new variable entered the game. The Wing Gundam Zero, the armor of the transformable mobile suit resplendent in white and blue and red with green and yellow highlights, as the machine came charging into view from the left fork of the T-junction, skidding to a halt as it saw the Gelgoog and comprehended the situation.

"Well now..." Char breathed, pleasantly surprised. This wasn't something he'd been expecting, but come to think of it, he did have unfinished business with this person. The last time they'd met, Char had enjoyed grinding the foe into paste beneath his feet, though sadly he'd been interrupted before he could finish the job. He did not see any allies of the Wing Zero around, and thus, Char assumed that he would be able to simply destroy the enemy and continue, without further distractions. Char did not adjust the aim of his CIWS as the crowd of people slowed, unsure of which way to flee now that there was a Gundam ahead of them and a potentially Gundam-class mobile suit behind them. They continued to move forward though, since the Wing Zero was far less threatening looking than the Gelgoog. "You've come to die, Lexi Yamato." Char announced over his external speakers.

Lexi did not reply, despite being a highly advanced, incredibly intelligent AI, even she had nothing she wanted to say to Char. Even for Lexi, words could not come close to properly expressing her disgust and loathing for this particular enemy and she did not struggle to try and confine her feelings to words. Actions would be her only conduit. Without waiting for the enemy pilot to make the first move, she opened fire with her mounted ranged weapons, a pair of yellow rail gun tracers and four streams of small caliber machine gun rounds instantly filling the air. Lexi did not intend for such attacks to actually harm the Gelgoog, merely to anger her easily unbalanced foe by stealing the perceived glory of first blood. She brought up the physical buster shield on her right forearm and held it before herself, the tip aimed at the Gelgoog. The shield suddenly split down the middile to reveal a glowing green beam blade as it simultaniously ignited a pair of powerful thrusters and launched itself at the enemy mobile suit. The huge shield was now essentially a large, beam-blade tipped missile.

Char did not bother to dodge as the rail gun rounds bounced off his chest uselessly, the bullets pinging loudly off the armor, doing little but scarring paintwork and dig pinpricks into his outer layer of armor. The beam-tipped shield was a different story...that could actually cause damage. He used his CIWS in a futile attempt to shoot the shield out of the sky, but only suceeding in knocking it off course and sending it crashing to the ground in the middle of the crowd, sending up a wave of pulverized flesh as it landed, beam blade slicing into the street below. The molecular cables attached to the buster shield whined as they were rapidly retracted back into the Wing Zero's forearm, the grounded cables inflicting more injury and death as they were hauled back through the crowd. Char smirked, he was sure that such wanton violence would weigh heavily on the conscience of his enemy, who was one of those people to which casualties actually meant something besides points.

The Gelgoog planted its feet widely as it braced itself for its counterattack. The anti-armor shotgun fired first, followed by a long burst from the shoulder gatlings and finished with a massive flight of missiles from the leg launchers. Over half the munitions did not make it to the target area, their mostly unaimed paths leading them to strike the street and buildings that lined it. The sound of cracking stone and high explosives filled the street like an avalanche thundering down a rocky canyon as multiple buildings crumbled and collapsed, thousands of tons of concrete and steel dropping onto the ground and spilling into the street, inundating it and wiping the crowd of people from existence as though they had never even been there to begin with.

A deep shudder rippled through the hull and the decks of the Minerva-class battleship Katsuragi as it dropped out of its brace in the Excalibur's vast warship dock. The winged vessel stood silent for a moment, and then the engines came to life with a roar. The purple-rimmed battleship nosed out of the dock and towards the hangar opening.

Standing tall on the Katsuragi's bridge with arms crossed as the mighty ship crossed the shoal zone and edged out into open space, Hope Yamato surveyed it all with her amethyst eyes. Her first mission was quite simply to attack and destroy a space colony or a civilian convoy or whatever other innocent target presented itself; just to do it.

Of course, the real reason wasn't 'just to do it.' Hope knew that well. Such meaningless malice was not the forte of the Supreme Commander of Celestial Being. The point, of course, was to make sure that the Alliance and its citizens had something to fear. Fear was important, and without fear the rest of the plan would not work. But Hope Yamato and her soldiers could provide fear.

She glanced down at Misato, the Katsuragi's faithful captain. "First target of opportunity looks like it'll be a civilian Marseille III class freighter." Misato reported. "IFF has it as part of the Junk Guild. Are they off-limits?"

Hope looked back at the screen, and the yellow and black hexagonal logo of the Junk Guild. She knew that she would have to be strong. Strength and a heart of steel would be necessary now. On her depended the future of her people. She would have to be strong, for Celestial Being, for Kira, and for Mayu.

"No one is off-limits. Prepare to fire."

And so the war began.

"Well, well, well." Asuka Langley Soryu chuckled, floating by the railing of the Katsuragi's interior observation deck. The green shimmering beams of the Katsuragi's Tristan cannons lanced out and speared the floundering Marseille III freighter through the midsection, and the ship snapped in two amid a thundering firestorm. "First blood is ours, boys."

Standing behind her, Shinn Asuka watched without emotion on his face, and Athrun Zala witnessed it all with something akin to disdain. "If you want to call an unarmed freighter first blood." Shinn snorted. "Call me when we're attacking something that can shoot back."

Asuka nodded towards the Junk Guild ship's smoldering wreckage. "Do that a few more times and we'll have something that shoots back on our hands." She grinned. "Yeah, let 'em come at us. We can take 'em. We can take 'em all."

Arms crossed, Athrun watched the wreckage with something unpleasant stirring in his throat. A few hours back in the Earth Sphere and they were already committing war crimes. But this, he reminded himself, was the plan; to terrify and distract the Alliance with atrocities like this, while reducing their population, crippling their military and economy, and making sure that the Earth Alliance and Blue Cosmos could never threaten Celestial Being ever again.

So, as the Junk Guild ship's wreckage drifted apart and the Katsuragi arced away from the wreck in search of its next prey, why did it feel so wrong?

Talia Gladys had almost forgotten what a pain in the ass zero-gravity was, since the Minerva had never been outfitted with the gravimetric plating present throughout the Excalibur, the Enterprise-E, and the Prometheus.

She refastened the restraint on the captain's char with a sigh and glanced up through the bridge windows, at the vast inky tableau of outer space. It had taken so much blood and effort to get up here.

The Minerva was to seek out the Three Ships Alliance Fleet. That was all well and good, she supposed; the Three Ships Alliance was one of the few forces within the amalgam of shattered timelines that was as feared and respected as Celestial Being. The Three Ships Alliance had singlehandedly reshaped the scattered resistance forces in space into a respectable fighting force. Although that had also wound up shaping the Earth Alliance Space Force into an equally respectable fighting force. Funny how that worked out.

"The Three Ships Alliance Fleet says they're...Oh, goddammit." Meyrin muttered; as she turned in her chair, she nearly floated out of it, and jabbed her foot under the communications console to stop herself. "This is going to take some getting used to."

"As graceful as a seagull." Luna shot back with a little too proud a smirk. "You were saying, Meyrin?"

Meyrin scowled back. "The Three Ships Alliance is sending a ship. They'll call us, don't call them, now if you'll kindly let me buckle the fuck up."

Talia waved it off. "Shinn, keep an eye out. We're probably going to attract an Alliance patrol too, but we'll just have to let whoever comes at us take the first shot."

The broken, smoking remains of a civilian space liner drifted around the Katsuragi, and Hope stood tall and cold on the bridge, arms crossed, regarding it all with an emotionless mask of stone. A knot of terrified bodies, faces frozen in death screams, drifted by the bridge windows; Hope crushed the horror and sorrow before they could bubble up to the surface. Changing the world required sacrifice, of them, and of herself, because their blood was on her hands now.

Misato glanced up from the captain's chair. "Civilian space traffic is slowing down sooner than we expected. What are we going to do about targets?"

"The Alliance is taking its time." Hope answered. "Which is odd. They should be all over us by now."

"Does this negatively affect our plans?"

"Not in the least. If they're not going to stop us from destroying the space transit systems and bringing the economies on the colonies to a halt, then so much the better." She waved forward. "If we run out of ships to target, then we'll start going after stationary satellites."

Of course, the people living and working in the colonies would be without power, without food, without medicine, without basic necessities for life in space, and they would be the ones not killed by Celestial Being's attacks. But once again, Hope crushed the emotions that would have left her weak had she allowed them to surface. The new world that Celestial Being was building demanded strength and sacrifice, and she would sacrifice just as surely as they would.

"You people can't hope to win against us." Kira Yamato scowled within the cockpit of the Divinity Gundam, as the vision of a brightly glowing, purple seed with gold veins appeared falling through his mind, before striking some infinitely dense surface and exploding with a pure white light, as though a new universe was being brought into existence.

The Divinity Gundam broke the beam saber clash it had been in with a mass production version of the Raider Gundam, before kicking the transformable mobile suit in the chest, sending it tumbling away. The Divinity quickly backed away, putting extra distance between the two mobile suits, even as the angelic machine's MCPS armor powered down and the chest and leg flyers suddenly seperated, revealing the X-02A Wyvern superfighter, which served as the cockpit of the angel-winged Gundam. Kira smirked withiin the cockpit of the Wyvern, quickly pulling his superfighter into a sharp right turn, igniting his afterburners and pulling away from the Raider Gundam as the now seperated halves of the Divinity Gundam ignited their thrusters, charging towards the floundering Raider. The two pieces of the Divinity Gundam slammed into the Raider Gundam before exploding into a pair of massive red-orange fireballs.

A few short seconds later, the all too familiar Legend Gundam streaked in from of the surrounding blackness, heading straight towards the quickly reassembling Divinity Gundam. The snowflake-shaped machine once again bearing a pink color scheme. Kira simply sighed as his angelic machine once again came together, with a flash from its amethyst eyes, and an instant later, he fired a full-burst at the approaching mobile suit, disabling it with a single volley.

A few seconds passed, but then Kira noticed three more Gundams quickly speeding towards him; the Infinite Justice, the Destiny and the Force Impulse. The amethyst-eyed man simply snapped his fingers, utilizing his more god-like powers to cause the Infinite Justice's subflight lifter to unexpectedly explode, even as the Force Impulse seperated itself into its individual components while the Destiny raised its right hand to its face and fired the beam cannon located in its palm, obliterating its own head with a searing green beam blast.


	71. The Arnhelm Colony

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 71**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

In space, life was different now.

The Minerva had made seven journeys into space since the end of the Third Bloody Valentine War, and this was the eighth. In those three years Talia Gladys had become relatively well-acquainted with the new order that ZAFT's defeat and the Alliance's ascendancy had created. The Alliance ruled the colonies with an iron fist, yes...but it ruled everyone with an iron fist. And some people didn't mind being ruled with an iron fist. The affluent citizens of certain colonies administrated by the Atlantic Federation, the Eurasian Federation, and the Republic of East Asia had everything they could have wanted, so who needed political freedom and legal rights?

But life in space was still life on the frontier, and on the frontier anything was possible. Some colonies were overlooked, and none more so than in Lagrange Point 1, where the writhing tendrils of the debris belt choked the trade lanes and occasionally reached out to menace colonies. This was the hideout of many criminal groups, overlooked by the world's powers, and as a result the Resistance had gained strength in this desolate region of space.

Talia sat back uncomfortably on the Minerva's darkened bridge. Her ship's destination was the Arnhelm Colony.

At her station, Meyrin Hawke leaned forward with a heavy sigh. "Arnhelm is run by Marko Jeremiah, isn't it?" She asked.

"The Admiral, Marko Jeremiah." Lunamaria Hawke corrected with as much venom as her voice could muster.

"I know." Talia answered. The Arnhelm Colony was officially a massive orbiting refugee camp for over seven million people. War orphans and displaced civilians had streamed there because it was out of the way and undesired by the warring armies rampaging on and around the planet, but those very qualities had been a decidedly mixed blessing. Lack of interest by either side of the wars made it forgotten to all but the occasional humanitarian group...and to people with all sorts of intentions.

Talia swallowed her anxiety as best she could. Arnhelm also had a port and a group of competent mechanics that could repair her battleship enough to get it to Terminal, near Lagrange Point 3. She would just have to accept it.

"It's not a total loss." Shinn Asuka glanced up at Athrun Zala's voice in the crew lounge, and found the blue-haired coordinator drifting into the chair on the other side of the table.

"What do you mean?" Shinn snorted. "We experienced malfunctions with both the Impulse and Destiny simultaneously, the Justice's subflight lifter got blown up, and the Legend got its ass handed to it on a silver platter."

"But we're not dead and we've still got four mobile suits to work with."

Shinn crossed his arms impatiently and sat back. "That doesn't make me feel better."

Athrun leaned forward. "Shinn, it's not worth hating Kira anymore. I know you have blood with him at least as bad as mine, but there's nothing left of him. He's not even a human anymore. He's just a shell, filled with someone else's intentions."

"He's still the one who killed my family and friends."

"Yes, but hating him is a waste of energy at this point."

Shinn eyed Athrun in surprise for a moment. "I would've thought you'd be more pissed off by all this."

"I know that he has to be destroyed." Athrun answered with a shrug. "I know nothing is going to change his mind, and he has power, and that all makes him dangerous. I don't know what's making him tick, but he has to be stopped before the takes the entire world down with him. He was the one who killed Cagalli and Lacus, and that's why I'll never forgive him. But hating him..." He shrugged again. "I'm tired of it."

After a moment's silence, Shinn heaved a sigh. "I'm not."

The Legend Gundam had been reduced to little more than a torso and most of a leg. That was a little disappointing for Rau Le Creuset, as he silently floated over the ruins of his trusty machine inside the Minerva's hangar. The Legend had served him well and kept him alive on a battlefield where his presence was increasingly necessary to make his plans work. He could not afford to leave Athrun on his own. Not to fight Kira. Kira was a failure, but he was still dangerous, and although someone, either Shinn, Athrun, or himself, would finally exterminate that failure, he could still do incalculable damage.

But it was not all hopeless. All they had to do was get to Terminal, and there awaited a new sword for him to take up against these powerful invaders known as Celestial Being. Captain Gladys had mentioned something about additional units; perhaps if their stay at Terminal could be long enough, they would have the resources and crew necessary to build even more new machines to deal with the angel-winged mobile suit which seemed to lead Celestial Being. And surely the Alliance had its own next-generation machines. Surely this war would escalate. ZAFT was certianly doing its damnedest to make that so.

"That thing is absurd!" Shinn crossed his arms defiantly and stared up in obvious disdain at the intel images of the mighty warship Excalibur on the Minerva's auxiliary screen. In the captain's chair, Talia arched an eyebrow at the pilot of the Destiny Gundam.

"I suppose." She agreed. "They built it to take down entire fleets by focusing primarily on overwhelming firepower, and apparently that has more or less paid off."

"Seventeen miles long." Athrun snorted. "And look at all those guns. They really don't need all that to take down a single Minerva-class ship."

Talia studied the images for a moment. The Excalibur had a second role in the Celestial Being military as well, however, that of sheer crushing intimidation. When the massive warship loomed over the horizon, those who laid eyes on it were supposed to fear. And fear was the natural response to such a massive warship armed with so many weapons. It was the natural choice for the flagship of an army whose professional method of operation was to induce fear among the people, fear so paralyzing that resistance would be impossible.

Talia Gladys swallowed her pride and stuck her hand forward on the docking tube stretching from her battered warship to the Arnhelm Colony's space dock.

In front of her stood the man that called his place home, and the man that this place called master. The wizened and wiry Marko Jeremiah, in his opulent blue naval uniform and leaning heavily on a cane, shook Talia's hand quickly and took a step back. Talia noted in the back of her mind the conspicuous presence of well-armed guards everywhere. It was always good to have a relationship based on mutual trust.

"Welcome to the Arnhelm Colony." Jeremiah said, even as he grimly swept his arm out over the tableau of Arnhelm's port. "Our mechanical staff will help your own with repairs, and you can take on supplies here for as long as your stay will last. Make yourselves at home." He motioned for Talia, Meyrin and Athrun to follow him, and his heavily-armed guards. "Other than the obvious, what brings you Arnhelm?"

Talia glanced at Meyrin and Athrun for a moment. "We got ambushed by that newly created military force which calls itself Celestial Being." She explained, even as she thought back bitterly to those terrorists known as Celestial Being, the ones who had spouted that; by performing armed interventions they would end war forever.

"We will not be here long." Talia said. "Just long enough to make sufficient repairs to the Minerva so that we can get to Terminal safely. The Celestial Being warship Excalibur arrived in space recently, and they will probably be coming after us again within the next week. Arnhelm would be endangered if we stayed for long."

Jeremiah said nothing, and only looked grimly ahead.

With arms of fire stretching out from the colony's hull and ripping pieces of it off into space, the Goddard space colony shuddered under the unstoppable fire of the Katsuragi. On the darkened bridge, Misato watched from the captain's chair as the colony writhed as though in pain. One of the mirrors had been blown off, and that was throwing off the colony's rotation. One more shot would pierce through and sever the axial shaft, and once that was broken, the colony would begin to collapse.

Misato glanced over her shoulder, towards the bridge doors. Hope rarely watched these actions for herself. Misato and the rest of the crew knew why; because her heart was sick at the slaughter.

But that was just like the sub commander of Celestial Being. Hope Yamato was a good woman, a saintly woman, far better than even the Coordinators who exacted their just and proper revenge and brought balance to the scales of justice as they swept the Earth up in terror. She had sympathy for even these vermin Naturals, sympathy which they did not deserve. She had steeled herself to do what the ideals of Celestial Being required, but her heart was too kind to feel nothing at the sight of it.

The colony rumbled as a Tristan salvo blew off another mirror. The Goddard colony's hull was riddled with holes from missile and Isolde shell impacts. Misato narrowed her eyes.

"Tannhäuser, lock onto the target and...fire!"

The Katsuragi sent forth a shimmering column of positron energy that plowed through the colony's openings. The Goddard colony began to crumble as the axial shaft snapped in two, and Misato sat back and watched with grim satisfaction as the rotating colony finally began to break apart.

They were dying. There were six million people in that colony and they were all dying.

Sitting at his desk, deep within the bowels of the Excalibur, Kira clutched his head with his hands and struggled to keep his sanity above the rolling waves of horror. Six million lives were vanishing from the vast plane of human consciousness. Six million lives were being snuffed out by the orders he had given. They were all dying in a cloud of fear, confusion and regret. They were dying and they had done nothing wrong. They were dying and it was his fault.

The Infinite Justice Gundam, lacking its subflight lifter, rumbled as its engines carried it out of the rapidly collapsing colony and into the sudden battle. Athrun quickly glanced around the cockpit; the Justice lost much of its weaponry without the Fatum-01 unit, but it still had its rifle, shield, sabers, and beam blades, and without the heavy Fatum unit, at least it had more agility.

"Shinn, how is it?" Athrun asked.

To his right, inside a Blaze ZAKU Warrior, Shinn shifted uncomfortably in the cockpit. "It'll do, I guess." He said with an airy sigh. "But it's not the same as my Eclipse Gundam."

"Of course not. So don't push your luck." Athrun glanced next at the Murasame on his left, in its sleek flight mode, with Rau Le Creuset in the cockpit. He could just deal with it himself. "Shinn, you hang back and provide fire support. The ZAKU just won't be able to keep-"

He fell silent as a familiar white bolt of energy sliced through the air before him. That feeling, he knew that feeling, but how? That ZAFT ship was nowhere nearby.

"Athrun." Rau said quietly. "Do you feel that?"

"Y-Yeah." Athrun answered. "But how? Is that Kira?"

"Not quite. It feels like Kira, but there's a distortion." Rau pursed his lips. "That thing is a clone of some sort."

"A...clone of Kira?"

"A clone of that guy who kicked our asses earlier?" Shinn groaned. "Are you serious?"

Rau smirked. "The Alliance had a program during the First and Second Valentine Wars where they would capture and brainwash Coordinators to do their fighting for them. They abandoned it after the Coordinators kept coming to their senses, but I suppose not all of them have been eliminated."

Silence reigned between them for a moment, before Shinn spoke up again. "Kind of hypocritical of them."

Athrun ground his teeth. "Incoming, scatter!"

The three mobile suits darted apart and Athrun opened fire with his beam rifle as a squad of Slaughter Windams came roaring in, rifles blazing, with a dark green and black mobile suit at their lead. It sent out a shining column of beam energy from the beam cannon on the left-hand side of its back, forcing the three mobile suits to dodge, and plowing straight through a quartet of mobile suits coming up from behind.

"The Impulse Gundam?" Shinn exclaimed.

"Yes, the Impulse Gundam." Rau grunted, and the Murasame let loose a missile barrage that drove back the Windams behind a sheet of CIWS fire. "One of East Asia's prototype mobile suits, it's essentially a next-generation version of the Strike."

Athrun felt pure rage ripple through his veins. "A clone of Kira piloting a clone of the Strike Gundam. How ironic."

"Isn't it, though?" Rau chuckled, and the three mobile suits dove back into battle.

"Those ones are different," Athrun muttered as the Justice's cockpit zoom focused on three approaching mobile suits, all with the faces of Gundams.

"Shinn!" Luna cried, and with a burst of exhaust the Twilight Gundam dropped in next to the Eclipse. Luna's grinning face appeared on the auxiliary screen. "Don't think you can get yourself into the battle without me!"

Shinn swallowed his fear, there were three mobile suits speeding towards him. "You'd better be able to keep up with-" His eyes went wide. "It's coming!"

The two mobile suits broke ranks and darted apart, and across the battlefield in the cockpit of the Destiny Impulse Gundam, Hope cracked a satisfied smirk. "All forces; begin attack!"

The Destiny Impulse opened fire with its rifle and cannon, quickly filling the sky with beam blasts, forcing the Eclipse and Twilight on the defensive. Luna leveled off her own beam rifle to return fire, but a moment later a shell slammed into the Twilight's face and sent her hurtling back, and with a crash, the Chimera Gundam was there with its beam saber lit to slash the Twilight's rifle in two.

Fire flashed around the Infinite Justice Gundam as its beam rifle was pierced by a pair of brightly glowing green beam blast and Athrun quickly tossed the now useless weapon away before it exploded. An instant later, Athrun's emerald eyes widened as he suddenly found himself staring into the barrel of a large beam cannon, one which appeared to be that of the Aegis Gundam. With the hiss of failing phase shift armor, which was followed only a few seconds later by the shriek of twisting metal, the Infinite Justice Gundam was quickly crushed by its much more advanced counterpart.

"All Celestial Being forces!" The voice of Murrue Ramius suddenly boomed through the communications lines. "Return to the Excalibur, our mission has changed!"


	72. Crime and Punishment

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 72**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

**Warning:** This chapter contains an extreme lemon, and is not suitable for anyone under the age of 18.

* * *

"Are we there yet daddy?" A high pitched voice asked from the seat behind Kira, where his daughter was sitting, kicking her legs idly as she stared out one of the cockpit windows, her chin propped on one hand, her elbow on the armrest. Kira took his eyes off the instruments and forward viewports for a moment to shoot his daughter a gimlet stare. Not only was this not that long a flight, comparatively speaking, but Aoi had perfectly clear access to their flight data on her personal laptop anytime she wanted it, and could probably even make out the main screens if she craned her head a bit in her chair. His daughter knew as well as he did how close they were to their destination, probably to within a few seconds margin, she was just asking because she was bored, and so she had decided to afflict someone else for her amusement. Though Aoi was undeniably his daughter, currently only ten years old, with waist length straight brown hair and the marigold eyes of her mother, she really acted much more like her Aunt Cagalli in his opinion.

His son Akira on the other hand, sitting in the chair to Aoi's right, behind the copilot's chair where Murrue was sitting, generally held himself aloof from the petty bickering and attention garnering most children of his age group tended to indulge in whenever they felt the spotlight turn away from them. At times Kira and Murrue worried about their son's social development compared to that of his peers, he seemed much more content to play by himself with his computer than to go outside and spend time running or swimming or doing any of the activities his younger sister enjoyed so much. Just about the only one who could willingly drag him from his self imposed isolation without resorting to cajoling or guilt inducing was Allister, Cagalli and Lacus's son. And even then, Akira seemed content to hang in the background as much as possible, rarely taking the limelight, and not talking much. A boy of few words, vocal or psychic, that was Akira.

For all that, Akira, whom was currently eleven years old, had brown hair and piercing violet eyes. To the surprise of both his parents, he had a beautiful voice just like his Aunt Lacus, in those very rare times when he could be convinced to show it off, and was already showing signs of a desire for following his Aunt along her own youthful path into the musical arts. He was just so shy, just like Kira half remembered he himself was at that age. If it weren't for Athrun coming over and befriending him. Kira shook his head, not wanting to dwell on might have beens. It was just crazy how much of himself he saw in his children, and how much of his friends he saw in theirs.

"I am not!" Aoi said sharpely, taking her head off her chin to reply vehemently to some comment her older brother had made on the psychic plane. She frowned and pouted at him furiously. "Mooooommm...Akira's touching me with his mind and I don't like iiiittt...!"

"Oh, be quiet you big baby." Akira retorted out loud, with a withering look of his own. "Grow up."

"Moooooommmm! Akira is making short jokes about me again!" Aoi complained.

"I am not!"

"You are too!"

"I am not!"

"You are too!"

"I am..."

"AKIRA! AOI!" Murrue turned around in her chair and gave them both a heated glare. "Sit in your chairs and be quiet! Don't even think at each other. If you don't stop this senseless bickering, I'll give you both something to cry about, just you wait! We're almost there, so don't test my patience anymore. If I hear or even perceive another word between the two of you, it'll be no dessert for an entire week, do you understand me?"

"Yessss Mooomm...geeze..." Aoi pouted.

_'She started it...'_ Akira added with a sigh of his own.

"Don't antagonize your mother, kids, you know better." Kira cut in with a bit of sharpness of his own. You would be hard pressed to find a more gentle and understanding pair of parents than him and Murrue, but that didn't mean they were soft on their kids when it came to manners and discipline. Some parents they knew would let their kids get away with just about any behavior, because they couldn't deal with children throwing temper tantrums, or because they were afraid to be seen as tyrannical or abusive when handing out punishments to their children. But there was nothing abusive in a raised voice or stern talking to now and then when children started to get out of line, and though it was a matter of debate, a stinging palm smack on the behind did tend to convince a chronic misbehaver of the costs of their acting out in Kira and Murrue's experience.

Cagalli was one of those parents that had a tough time disciplining kids, not in the least because she herself had been pretty wild and undisciplined her entire life. Complicating the situation even further was the mounting guilt over constantly being away from her son, Allister, while he was growing up, essentially all alone onboard the Excalibur, and thus Cagalli could rarely muster up the gumption to draw the line in the sand, not that Allister frequently crossed it anyway. And those few times in which he did croos the line, he found that Lacus, who had grown up in a very strict household, waiting for him with stern words, a disappointed look and then generally a heart to heart conversation about why what Allister had done was wrong, often followed by a revoking of gaming and computer privileges. Kira didn't know how Shinn and Luna kept their kids in line, though he would bet money it had more to do with Luna than Shinn.

Antsy children silenced for the moment, though the glowers they were shooting at each other and the backs of their parents heads, when they thought Murrue and Kira weren't looking, told him that it was a temporary truce at best, Kira turned back to his controls and instruments, as he guided the shuttle towards their destination. Or rather, kept his hands on the controls and watched the autopilot to make sure that nothing was going wrong, and nothing was. The type of shuttle they were flying bore strong resemblances to a Boeing 747-8, this particular type of shuttle was used by all of Celestial Being's senior officers as their personal airborne transports, although the one which Kira and Murrue were currently in was much less opulent, since it wasn't a privately owned vessel, but rather one of ten long range, surface to orbit capable craft owned and operated by Celestial Being, the charity conglomeration organization, which was dedicated to eliminating all conflict.

The shuttle's exterior was painted a very distinctive and eye catching combination of white, black and red, matching the color scheme of the Divinity Gundam, in addition, the shuttle's wings and tail were painted both so that they resembled the Divinity's angelic wings, although the interior of the shuttle was much more subdued in its color schemes of light blues and creams, with a large cockpit up forward, which was connected to a large lounge and entertainment room, complete with a fully stocked kitchen, a large high defenition plasma television and multiple gaming consoles, and in the rear of the shuttle were four bedrooms and pair of sanitary facilitys. The rest of the interior space was given over either to the machinery that operated the shuttle or cargo space.

As the shuttle continued on its journey, Kira's thoughts drifted back to the events of a few days ago. Cagalli and Lacus had retired to their quarters for some rest and relaxation, and as a result, they were both allowing the drugs which kept the potent aphrodisiac known by its street name of; Pink Passion, to wear off. Just as Cagalli's most recent dose of controllers had worn off, the door slid open and Allister ran in, his golden eyes searching for his parents, even as his short blonde hair, which had natural pink higlights, settled into place, framing his face. In an instant, Cagalli, whom was now under the complete influence of the potent drugs surging through her body, had broken free from Lacus's gentle embrace and tackled her son to the floor. Cagalli had almost succeeded in completely removing Allister's uniform shirt, only to be stopped when she was suddenly tackled from the side by Lacus, the impact forcing her to roll off of her son. An instant later, Lacus grabbed Cagalli by the neck and repeatedly slammed her body into the wall. After ten long seconds and more than one dozen painful impacts with the wall, Cagalli lost consciousness, her body falling the the floor in a motionless heap.

Kira visibly shuddered at the memory, he remembered rushing to Lacus and Cagalli's shared quarters after hearing the pink-haired beauty cry out in disbelief and horror on the psychic plane. When the amethyst-eyed man had arrived at the scene, he didn't know what to expect. But he never expected to find his nephew half naked, tears streaming down his face, huddled in a corner of the room with Cagalli lying unconscious on the opposite side of the room as Lacus, whom was now sporting a pair of pure white, angelic wings, floated over her fallen lover. The blue-eyed beauty had clearly lengthened her silky pink tresses to nearly five miles and she had wrapped her soft locks tightly around Cagalli's wrists and ankles, before then binding her entire body, in order to keep the blonde-haired woman restrained should she regain consciousness and attempt to renew her assault.

As a result of the attack, Cagalli had been stripped of all of her powers, the only exceptions being her immotrality and regeneration, and had been placed in solitary confinement. In addition to having been placed in solitary confinement, the blonde-haired woman's wrists and ankles were tightly bound with thick metal shackles, secured around her neck and head was a thick leather collar and gag which was attached to the wall by a three foot long metal leash, and to make the solitary confinement even worse for her, she was also being denied the daily injections of medications necessary in order to keep the effects of the potent aphrodisiac under control.

Cagalli whimpered through the gag as she woke up to the sound of soft footsteps in the corridor. She slowly lifted her head to see Lacus standing on the other side of the transparent blue force field. The energy barrier had been activated more as a safety precaution than anything else; in the unlikely event that Cagalli should somehow break the leash and try to escape, the force field would stop her by vaporizing any part of her body which made contact with the glowing energy field.

Lacus smiled sweetly as she deactivated the force field and stepped into the isolation chamber, the glowing barrier quickly reactivating as she began to move towards the blonde-haired beauty.

"How are you feeling, Cagalli?" Lacus asked.

_'Fuck you, Lacus.'_ Cagalli mentally spat.

"We both know that would be very enjoyable." The pink-haired beauty replied, even as she kneeled down and set a plastic box on the floor, just outside Cagalli's reach. "And as much as we both want to, we simply can't do that right now." She frowned. "You are being punished for a reason, Cagalli."

Lacus sighed as she carefully pulled more than a dozen syringes from the box, one at a time. Each of the syringes were filled with a familiar, bright, intense pink-violet liquid, twenty milliliters of liquid per syringe. Cagalli's golden eyes widened in a mix of anticipation and horror when she saw the syringes. Even after seeing the twelve syringes and realizing what they contained, Cagalli continued to watch as Lacus then pulled what appeared to be a normal bra, a pair of panties, a round hairbrush, and finally, a small fishbowl from the box. After carefully making sure that she hadn't forgotten anything, Lacus picked up one of the syringes and walked over to her blonde-haired lover.

Cagalli screamed through the gag, the noise a combination of intense pleasure and equally intense pain, as Lacus thrust the syringe deep into her lover's dripping womanhood. The needle effortlessly pierced Cagalli's clitoris, the pain causing tears to slip from the corners of her beautiful golden eyes. Lacus smiled sadistically as she slowly pushed the plunger down, injecting the highly potent, pink-violet aphrodisiac directly into her lover's swollen clitoris. Cagalli moaned loudly through the gag as the powerful aphrodisiac immediately began to take effect while also serving to further heighten the pleasure caused by the drug that was already flowing throughout her body.

"Hush now, Cagalli." Lacus softly cooed as she gently ran her free hand through her lover's silky, ankle-length blonde tresses. "I've only injected you with one of the twelve syringes that I brought along with me." Lacus smiled sweetly as Cagalli's moans increased in both frequency and volume, despite the gag that was blocking her mouth. The pink-haired beauty allowed another sadistic grin to cross her lips as she carefully set the first syringe down and picked up another, holding it in front of her lover's golden eyes and allowing her to clearly see the highly potent, pink-violet aphrodisiac which filled each of the twelve syringes.

"As I'm sure you know, Cagalli." Lacus sweetly smiled. "Not only does this wonderful drug bring you constant pleasure, but the injection site remains extremely sensitive to touch for up to one month after the initial injection." Cagalli could only shudder in anxious, yet eager anticipation as her lover gently pressed the tip of the needle against her right nipple.

Cagalli whimpered through the gag three short seconds later, as she realized that Lacus wasn't applying enough pressure to break the skin and inject her. "I can't decide if I should inject your breasts now, or if I should simply wait, and inject them just before I let the leeches begin to breastfeed from you." Cagalli could only whimper in response, even as Lacus took the needle away from her soft skin. The pink-haired beauty silently walked back over to her collection of toys and picked up a second syringe before returning to Cagalli. "Stay calm, baby." Lacus sweetly cooed as she raised the two needles to the blonde's temples, piercing both of the large veins, slowly injecting even more of the powerful aphrodisiac into her lover's body. As the bright pink liquid began to slowly flow into Cagalli's blood stream, Lacus began to utilize some of her more God-like abilities, actually controlling the flow of the powerful drug, making it collect in her lover's hair follicles.

_'Wha-what are you doing, Lacus?'_ Cagalli asked, confusion and arousal evident in her mental voice.

"I'm controlling the flow of the Pink Passion after it enters your blood stream, silly." Lacus giggled.

_'Why are you making it collect in my hair follicles though?'_ The blonde mentally moaned, her arousal slowly becoming harder to ignore, even though she was speaking telepathically.

"Once the entirety of those two injections has collected in your hair follicles, those beautful blonde tresses of yours will become just as sensitive to touch as the rest of your body currently is." Lacus smiled. "Whether I'm brushing those silky strands of yours, or sucking on your breasts and fingering you, your body won't know the difference, and you will be consumed by pleasure." The blue-eyed beauty grinned as she finished emptying the two syringes into her lover's temples, but finally she pulled the twin needles from her lover's head. Lacus quickly set the two syringes down with her other toys, picking up the hairbrush instead before then returning to Cagalli.

_'P-please, Lacus.'_ Cagalli begged, her telepathic voice now clouded with lust.

Lacus simply allowed a sweet smile to cross her lips as she began to gently brush Cagalli's silky blonde locks. Cagalli's golden eyes widened and she moaned loudly through the gag as the bristles of the brush ran smoothly through her soft tresses. Lacus continued to brush her lover's hair, well aware that she had brought the blonde-haired beauty to an orgasm with the first stroke of the hairbrush. After thoroughly brushing every single strand of her lover's hair, Lacus set the brush down, and once more picked up a pair of syringes, injecting these two directly into her lover's erect nipples, causng the blonde to scream into the gag with a mix of pan and pleasure. Lacus then repeated the process, injecting Cagalli with the remaining Pink Passion, one syringe in her clit, two syringes in her temples, with the drug itself quickly flowing into Cagalli's silky blonde hair, and the final two syringes in her breasts.

"I wonder how sensitive that sexy body of yours is now, Cagalli." Lacus smiled, even as her eyes glanced down to Cagalli's womanhood. The blue-eyed beauty grinned slightly as she noticed a steady stream of cum leaking from her lover's slit.

_'L-Lacus.'_ Cagalli's mental voice panted.

"Just relax, baby." Lacus cooed, before teleporting Cagalli and herself into the dungeon in the Inner Sanctum. The pink-haired beauty merely smiled as she led her blonde lover over to the electric chair. Before Cagalli could even hope to protest, she found herself seated in the chair, with her ankles shackled to the legs of the chair and her wrists shackled to the armrests.

Lacus smiled as she clipped the leash to the back of the chair before gazing at Cagalli's naked body, which was now completely restrained in the electirc chair. The blue-eyed beauty smiled seductively as she quickly walked over to golden-eyed lover, reached behind her back and freed the soft ankle-length tresses. Cagalli moaned through the gag as her silken tresses gently setteled against her breasts, the gentle caresses of the silken strands causing milk to momentarily seep from her nipples.

Lacus smirked as she reached underneath the seat which Cagalli was now restrained to and turned a knob, causing a thick metal dildo to emerge from the center of the seat, the thick rod instantly embedding itself deep within her blonde-haired lover's already dripping entrance. Cagalli's eyes rolled up slightly as the thick dildo forced its way between her vaginal lips and instantly began to vibrate. The pink-haired beauty smiled sadistically as she reached into a pocket on the front of her dress and produced a small remote control, pressing a glowing red button on the remote, activating the electric chair and sending powerful electric shocks directly into Cagalli's already soaking wet pussy.


	73. Creatures of Legend

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 73**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

"I hate to interrupt in the middle of a military operation, but we have a VERY BIG problem." Meyrin Hawke said without preamble, her voice edging towards hysteria. "Long range sonar is detecting a large mass moving towards this location at incredible speed. It'll be here in minutes. I think that by killing that shark earlier, we may have disturbed the local marine life and they called for help." Meyrin trailed off, her voice stangulated. "And help heard."

"This wouldn't happen to be that one big mass we were..." Asuka started to say, even as Evangelion Unit 02 took up a defensive position, hovering high above the Excalibur's forward deck.

"Yes, in fact, it would." Meyrin quickly cut the redheaded Evangelion pilot off, her voice cracking noticably. "If the shark which Shinn sliced in half earlier has a mommy, she is now inbound, going several hundred miles per hour at a depth of almost thirty eight hundred meters! The displacement is insane, she must be three times the size of the Archangel!"

"Taking measurements of incoming massive biological object." Lexi announced. "Logging data in targeting databanks for future reference. Incoming object, to be hereby designated as Epsilon 1, is roughly nine hundred seventy meters long and likely weighs over 450,000 tons, making it bigger than the Archangel, the Eternal and the Minerva combined. Data on animals within the merged timelines compiled from various sources indicate high probability that size corresponds to intelligence among animals, and often though not always to psychic power as well. If such is true, then Epsilon 1 can probably be safely classified as a strategic WMD level threat." Lexi's analytical tone faded away for a moment, her tone of voice and choice of language surprising everyone. "HOW IN THE FUCKING HELL CAN SOMETHING THIS BIG EVEN EXIST?" She demanded, either mimicing hysteria incredibly well, or actually perturbed by the thought of such a gigantic living thing. "If the size to intelligence ratios are anything close to what I think they are, this thing could be as smart as I am!" Lexi continued to rant. "Epsilon 1 is now at fourteen thousand meters and closing rapidly, depth 2,000 meters on a shallow ascent." She added, her voice somewhat calmer as the Excalibur's thrusters and wings of light flared to life and the dagger-shaped ship lifted out of the water.

"Dear lord...can you guys see what I'm seeing?" Asuka called down from above, her eyes locked onto the ninety foot high and several mile wide wave that had risen out of the distance and was hurtling down at them like a runaway express train. "It's pushing a goddamn tsunami in front of itself! All hands, brace for sudden impacts!"

Asuka's warning turned out to be unnecessary, as the wave subsided into barely more than a gentle push before it reached the fleet, but all the same, the water displacement caused by countless tons of water being moved actually pushed the ships around in the water, like a hand stirring a bathtub filled with rubber duckies from below.

"Epsilon 1 is surfacing! Epsilon 1 is surfacing!" Lexi warned, watching with an audible gulp as the water around the fleet began doming upwards until there was a noticable hummock of water encompassing a several mile diameter section of ocean, the center parts a good ten to fifteen feet above the usual water level of the ocean. And then that hummock suddenly flattened out, becoming concave rather than convex, a huge depression in the water's surface that dragged at the ships unfortunate enough not to be able to take to the air, tugging them towards the center of the bowl. And then that too flattened out in a matter of moments, it was almost like Epsilon 1 couldn't decide what she wanted to do long enough to cause any harm.

Suddenly, a column of water exploded from the ocean beneath one of the escort frigates, not striking in a manner focused enough to slice or even to crush, it just propelled the entire ship skyward like a bottlecap on a geyser, the edges of the column overlapping around the sides of the ship until the vessel was almost entirely encased within the rising spume of water, armored observation ports shattering inward, watertight hatches ripping off hinges as unstoppable water pressure slammed into the frigate from all sides at once before the water column jerked to a halt, imparted momentum flinging the frigate free of its watery tomb, flipping through the air like a oddly shaped poker chip as it upended and plummeted towards the ocean's surface, almost 1,600 feet below its current altitude. The frigate struck the surface of the ocean canted on its side, and the ship shattered as if dropped upon hard, rocky ground, a telekinetic impulse stiffening the water's surface to the consistency of ice at the moment of impact.

A second frigate was simply hauled underwater, the entire ship pulled straight down as though it were no more than a balloon on a string, its propellers still madly churning, trying futilely to propel the ship back to the surface when the water pressure crushed the hull like it was made of thin eggshell. And still, Epsilon 1 continued to make her stately way to the surface, gargantuan flukes and flippers of telekinetic force slapping and slamming into the hulls of ships, battering them about like plastic models.

And then the Minerva was manuevering around to bring its weapons to bear, the primary turret with its pair of automatic beam cannons unleashing a volley of energy blasts into the water, each energy beam containing almost as much explosive power as a small tactical nuke! The secondary dorsal turrets, mounted two forward and one after, consisting of a rapidfire positron cannon and dual linear cannons in each turret, also revolved around and began firing, churning the ocean's surface into a mass of steam and shrapnel, various mobile suits and the remaining ships starting to add their firepower to the cauldron of destruction that was chewing its way down to meet the rising behemoth. Raging currents of telekinetically propelled water surged forward to replace the fluid being vaporized by the attacks, and Epsilon 1 remained safely cocooned in soothing, cool moisture no matter how much firepower was directed down at her.

And then the Minerva cut loose with its prow mounted positron cannon, a seventy foot wide beam of crackling crimson and cerulean energy spearing into the divot pounded into the ocean's surface by the other weapons. The blast wave from the firing of the weapon sent the Minerva heeling to the side, and the other ships and mobile suits were forced to scatter before the expanding walls of mist and steam. The crater of water slowly settled and refilled, the ocean swallowing the hyperthermal energy blast like it had never been fired. The only sign that it had actually been fired were the wisps of heat coming from the prow of the Minerva, and the roiling heat signature in the depths. Which strangely wasn't disspiating at all.

"That's odd." Lexi commented, on the bridge of a dozen ships at once. "The heat signature seems to be getting closer." Even as she said that, she calculated out the probable short term outcome, and as one the ships jerked into evasive maneuvers. Some ships were more agile than others though, and even on its best day, the huge trimaran supercarrier known as the Uzumi Nara Attha, was not a sprinter of a ship. yes, it could go quite fast in straight lines, fast enough to keep up with most of its escorts at flank speed. But it wasn't quick to start nor was it particularly good at evasive maneuvers. It was certainly not fast enough to avoid the telekinetically corralled positron blast coming at it from below, which cored through the main hull and exited out through the left-center of the flight deck only three seconds after Lexi started the automatic evasive manuevers. For an agonizingly long quarter second, there was a perfectly circular, seventy foot wide, molten orange rimmed hole in the supercarrier, where someone standing on the flight deck could have bent over and seen almost a mile straight down into the ocean. Then the shockwave caused by the flash heated water arrived, and the supercarrier went off like a massive firework, fuel supplies, ammo bunkers and energy capacitors combining to make the ship practically disappear in a near mushroom cloud!

"Dear lord, the Uzumi..." Murrue gasped, sitting in her captain's chair, her eyes wide, hands clenched against the armrests of the chair, but a second after that, her hard won resolve replaced the shock. "All ships, this is Captain Ramius on the Excalibur! We cannot prevail against this foe! I am ordering a full withdrawal, all ships, scatter and meet up at the rendevous point as soon as you can! All mobile suits should return to their carrier ships, any suits from the Uzumi should hitch a ride on the outer surfaces of the Excalibur, Minerva, or one of the other surviving ships. Do not expend any more firepower against Epsilon 1, it will only send it right back at you or another ship!" Murrue bit down on her lip just shy of hard enough to draw blood. "Who would have ever thought the sea contained such monstrous creatures. It's like something out of the myths of the age of sail."

Murrue watched on the bridge screens as the Excalibur fled what had suddenly become a battlefield. No, it was no battlefield, there had been no chance of their victory as soon as Epsilon 1 arrived. They fled the site of a massacre with their tails tucked between their legs and the shattered remains of Orb's most powerful naval fleet slowly subsiding into the depths. This was a very dark day indeed for both the Orb Union and Celestial Being, their proudest combined fleet put to undignified rout in a matter of minutes by a single creature, albeit one bigger than any two ships of the fleet combined! Murrue wondered for a moment how something so big could even survive. What did it eat, and how had they not spotted it before? Why had it chosen now to come to the surface and attack? Had it been called when Shinn had sliced that shark in half? There was still so much they didn't know about their own changed world.

One of the last things Murrue saw through the cameras, before the Excalibur broke through the lower layer of clouds was a huge, grey-black mass of slick hide, faintly reminescent of that of a whale, though the size of a small atoll, break the surface of the water far below, plumes of exhausted air quickly escaping through a multitude of what could have been blowholes. At first she thought that the creature had just breached its back, until a solid golden eye the size of a Gundam opened in the middle of the mass, and Murrue realized that she was just looking at the thing's head, and only one side of it! The water was so turbulent around the thing that it was impossible to get a real feel for its actual shape, there was just a massive dark spot in the ocean, with that great golden eye staring up at them, watching them as they fled.

A few hours later, Kira stared in disbelief at the creature which now floated defiantly before his angel-winged Divinity Gundam. The creature was strange, to say the least. It was about the size of an average human, but unlike any human Kira had ever seen, the creature had a pair of black wings on its back, its skin was colored light-green with black spots and had black sections located on the shoulders, chest, and ankles, in addition to an orange section near his crotch area, bordered with black. The creature's face and hands were pale, there were purple lines on both sides of its cheeks, and a yellow line across from its ears and chin. Its eyes were pink, and finally, it had purple veins.

"Whoa!" Kira cried out in slight surprise, as the creature drew its right hand back, thrusting it forward an instant later and sending a glowing sphere of energy speeding towards the angelic machine, but the energy blast merely bounced off the the Divinity's MCPS armor. "Who the fuck are you?" Kira's voice snarled through the Divinity's external loudspeakers.

"I am the perfect wapon." The creature calmly replied. "I am known as Cell."

"No, you are far from the perfect weapon." Kira laughed, clearly amused by the creature's claim. "That privilege is reserved exclusively for my family, my friends and myself!"

"You fool!" The creature yelled back, clearly angered as it began sending a flurry of glowing energy blasts at the stationary Divinity Gundam, the blasts bouncing harmlessly off the machine's armor. "Don't you realize yet you're up against the perfect weapon?"

"Ok, you mindless moron." Kira sighed in annoyance as the Excalibur dropped the shroud of its phase cloak and faded into existence a few miles behind the angelic machine. "Stop trying to fight me, or I'll be forced to conclude that you are guilty of promoting conflict, and will have to eliminate you." Just as Kira finished speaking, the song Meteor, performed by T.M. Revolution, began to blare from the Divinity's external loudspeakers.

Suddenly, a burst of yellow energy erupted out of Cell's body. Violent winds broke out through the surrounding area like pieces of glass that were slowly shattering, and the entire area unexpectedly dimmed from day to night as black sparks of electricity began to flow around Cell's body.

"Are you quite done with that shitty light show of yours?" Kira yawned, even as he merged himself with the Divinity Gundam and shrunk the machine down to the size of a normal human, if for no other reason then to make the rapidly approaching fight at least somewhat fair. Even when the Divinity Gundam was the size of an average human, it could still utilize its METEOR unit, which was also scaled down, in order to dock with the angel-winged machine, and if it should ever become necessary, Kira could always return his angelic machine and its METEOR unit, to their normal size.

Before Cell could answer, the voice of Hope Yamato, blared from the Excalibur's external loudspeakers. "Lacus, what does the Excalibur's computer say about Cell's power level?"

"It's over 9000!" Lacus answered, before she, along with the others on the bridge burst into laughter, even as they headed towards the hanger, leaving Lexi to control the ship itself.

"Oh, for fuck's sake." Kira groaned, even as the Divinity Gundam buried its face in its hands. "That was not needed."

Kira's lovers never understood why these stupid flight suits had to be so tight. There were all kinds of flight suit models, both civilian and military, that had more room for the wearer. But no, not for pilots. Instead they each had a custom colored Celestial Being flight suit; pink and white for Cagalli, red and white for Hope, dark pink and light pink for Lacus, gold and black for Mayu, and blue and white for Murrue. The flight suit that hugged their every curve in ways they didn't always appreciate, and made it a pain to cram their body into them and then peel it off when they were done. It was like Kira had designed the things that way intentionally.

With a shove, they finally squirmed into the boots, yanked on their gloves, seized their helmets, and staggered out of the locker room. And of course these stupid flight suits made all five of them blush the whole way from the lockers to the cockpit of their respective Gundams. Kira had definitely done this intentionally.

The five women jogged down the corridor towards the hangar. In their minds, only Kira should have ever seen them wearing these embarrassing flight suits. They each rounded the final corner and headed into the hangar, aiming straight for their machines. Back to war.

Licking his lips as the various forms of energy flashed around his rumbling Divinity Gundam, Kira Yamato watched eagerly as Cell leveled off his left arm and sent a searing yellow energy blast towards his angelic machine. This creature was definitely something else, judging by the way it had actually caught his beam blasts and now had them spinning around its body in an elegant display.

"Long-range combat doesn't seem to work against you." Kira growled, even as he ignitied the beam sabers on his machine's wrists and charged forward. "So let's see how well you handle close-range combat!" Cell's eyes widened in shock as the angelic machine suddenly vanished, seemingly evaporating into thin air.

Energy blasts sizzled by the Eclipse and Twilight Gundams, both of which had, like the Divinity, assumed the size of an average human, as they made their approach to assist Kira. Shinn scanned the sky for a sign of his enemy, and abruptly it appeared.

"Luna, split up." Shinn instructed, and a moment later, Cell filled the sky with various energy blasts. The Eclipse rocketed up over the creature to draw his fire, and the Twilight lunged at the green humanoid with its beam saber shining to life.

Instead, Cell charged down towards Luna and swung back, a makeshift energy shield surrounding his left arm, stopping the Twilight's blade cold, even as the creature began to launch a torrent of energy blasts towards the Eclipse. Luna scowled in frustration. "It'll take more than that...!"

Up above, the Eclipse whirled around Cell's furious energy shots and pounded a salvo of his own beam blasts against Cell's left shoulder. Cell darted aside as Shinn rushed in for a finishing palm cannon blow, but instead, Shinn whirled around with a beam boomerang in hand and hurled it through Cell's right arm.

Cell smirked as the severed limb regenerated, he then surrounded both arms with energy and lunged to slam them both against the Eclipse's beam shield. As the boomerang came whirling back in, Cell jinked to the right, and Shinn caught it with a grunt of frustration.

"Well, if it's going to be like that!" Shinn growled, and with a crash he stashed his beam rifle, instead drawing the massive anti-ship sword. Cell raised both his arms and waited as the Eclipse charged.

"Surprise, motherfucker!" Kira's voice roared, as the Divinity Gundam, its eyes now shining with a bright amethyst light, suddenly reappeared, the machine's face now only ten inches from Cell's own. Cell had no time to react as the Divinity's eyes suddenly lit up with a blindingly bright white light. "Die!" Kira shrieked as he fired the Divinity's plasma cannons and cross flare cannons. The twin plasma cannon blasts effortlessly tore through Cell's body, vaporizing his right arm along with the entire left side of his body. An instant after the two searing beam blasts had hit Cell, a pair of explosions, both of which posessed destructive power equivalent to a large thermonuclear bomb, enveloped the remains of creature before then exploding into a single, pure white cross of energy. The cross of energy quickly spread out, the base impacting the ground nearly a mile below the hovering machine, while the top exteded another mile into the sky before finally spreading out. Nearly an entire minute had passed before brightly shining energy cross finally began to fade.

"Damn, we missed the fight." Hope sighed, as the Destiny pulled up beside the Divinity.

"Where the hell did that silver Archangel-class ship come from?" Meyrin Hawke's voice suddenly shrieked, even as a pair of transparent blue tractor beams lashed out from the ship in question and latched onto her GuAIZ Experimental Firearms Type. "I can't break free!" She growled, even as her machine's thrusters flared with bright blue flames, the wings of light projected brillint pink energy wings and the armor of the machine lit up with the red light of Trans-Am. "Athrun!" She cried out as the tractor beams dragged her into the open hanger bay of the silver Archangel-class battleship.

"Let her go!" Athrun screamed, as the Infinite Justice Gundam lit up with the light of Trans-Am and roared towards the now quickly fleeing battleship, but he already had a feeling that he wouldn't be fast enough. Much to Athrun's horror, the Archangel-class ship suddenly produced a pair of glowing pink energy wings and sped away, leaving an army of glowing afterimages in its wake.


	74. Prision Break

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 74**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

"Athrun, I understand what you're saying." Kira Yamato sighed as he sat in the cockpit of the Divinty Gundam, even as the angelic machine chased after the Infinite Justice Gundam, which was currently streaking through space towards an Earth Alliance prision where his fiancée; Meyrin Hawke, was being held. "But we don't want you fighting against us even with things the way they are now...because Athrun, what is lost in battle is gone and never returned."

"I've had enough of your sanctimonious talk!" Athrun roared, as the Infinite Justice whirled around and fired its beam rifle, the searing green beam blast harmlessly bouncing off the Divinity's MCPS armor. "You think you've got all the answers! Or have you forgotten all the lives you've personally taken!"

"Yes, I know." Kira nodded. "And that's why I'm so sick and tired of all of it."

"Kira..." Athrun trailed off, tears slipping from his eyes. "I only want to save Meyrin, I'm not deserting Celestial Being."

"I know, Athrun. I don't want to kill any more, and I will not let others kill." Kira calmly replied. "I also know that you feel the same way I do when it comes to killing." The amethyst-eyed man said, moving directly in front of the Infinite Justice Gundam and opening his arms wide. A halo abruptly appeared above the angelic machine's head and the thrusters on its back flickered rapidly on and off. A wave of air seemed to materalize within the blackness and spread out from the front of the Divinity. Athrun gasped in surprise when lightning suddenly coursed across the control screens and they went to pure static, even as his thrusters died. He couldn't see it, but his twin beam sword winked out like a snuffed candle. Unpowered, the Infinite Justice Gundam began to silently float through the void.

Part of Meyrin Hawke's special 'trustee' status was the freedom to mingle with certain other groups of prisioners, in a controlled and carefully monitored environment, of course. Usually these groups were younger, generally children, often those that were fresh off the shuttles from Earth and who were still adapating to the harsh realities of their new existences in space as lab animals. It had been determined that the risks of allowing Meyrin to socialize with these waifs was offset by the calming influence of an older female mother figure that the tykes could latch onto for an hour or two every couple of days. It kept them calmer without having to resort to drugging them whenever they started calling for their mommies and daddies, or siblings or whatever. It saved time and saved cost in having to use fewer specialty drugs, and it provided them with a 'privilege' to take away from children that misbehaved too often, in essence confining them to solitary imprisonment without their new mother figure until they shaped up.

A spare, empty storeroom was provided as a sort of playpen for the children, with basic toys like blocks and crayons, though each item was carefully inventoried after each session so that the kids couldn't try and sneak out any writing implements or potential weapons or suicide choking hazards. There was no furniture, and nothing to hide behind, multiple cameras keeping watch on each sector of the room; the conversations, such as they were, carefully recorded and screened for any evidence of collaborations, a team of guards armed with stun batons, tranquilizer darts and tear gas grenades waited on duty outside at all times while there were children at play.

Meyrin resented the way the scientists used her to manipulate good behavior out of the children by giving them time with her and then taking that time away if the child ever did anything out of line, which could even be as simple as not providing the test results the scientist was looking for, as if that was the child's fault! But there was no reasoning with the type of scientists that worked in this sector of the Earth Alliance's labs, the Coordinators were no different from cloned albino lab mice to them, and with the war on, there was a steady stream of new subjects arriving all the time, so it wasn't like they were totally irreplacable or anything. And providing any hope and comfort at all to the terrified and sometimes injured children was better than doing nothing! Plus it allowed her to feel indignation for others, rather than sinking into a pit of constant self pity over her own circumstances. And sometimes she was even able to carry short messages back and forth, in secret, between children and their families that were in other parts of the labs, little squiggles of colored crayon on her skin that looked meaningless to the guards, but still proved to the parents that their child was alive and functioning.

Meyrin's head jolted up when the door to the playpen hissed open, well ahead of the usual scheduled change out of children, and in stepped a squadron of guards, dressed in heavier full body flak vests and mirror lensed gas masks. They looked around the room, either uneasily or dangerously, perhaps a combination of both, as children scattered like mice and hugged the walls, turning their faces away from the scary looking men.

Meyrin simply stared at them challengingly, carefully setting aside the young boy nestled in her lap, who scampered away hastily as she stood up and took a step towards the guard squad, who had heavy truncheons and some form of projectile taser or stun guns in their hands. Judging by the flab on one of them, she knew the identity of at least one guard, and her lip curled in utmost disdain and disgust as she turned her eyes away from Harry Mcnabb, the underwear stealing pervert. Meyrin folded her arms across her chest imperiously, and opened her mouth to demand what the guards wanted, assuming it was something more productive than simply terrorizing a room full of pre-adolescent children. "She's one!" Meyrin heard Mcnabb say, his voice muffled and tinny from inside his gas mask. "Stun 'er!" He added, and a second later, before Meyrin could even think of dodging, one of the tasers spat its little dart at her, striking her in one folded arm, the channeled jolt of electricity making her hair stand up on end as she dropped to the ground like a wet sack, gurgling and convulsing painfully.

"Where's the others? I can't tell these little monsters apart." One of the guards complained, barely audible to Meyrin as she lay twitching on the cold floor by their feet.

"Screw it." One of the others commented. "Gas them all, we'll sort out the grain from the chaff after."

"Wait...!" Meyrin gritted, mastering the spasms from the nerve overloading jolt, propping herself up on one elbow and reaching out to grab the ankle of the leading guard. "Please don't...they're just kids...there's no need for force..." A moment later he jerked his ankle out of her grip, kicking her hand away and then stepping on it, making her cry out in pain as a finger crunched loudly.

"Holy shit, it grabbed me! Stun it again!" The guard swore loudly.

Before the other gaurd could reply, the entire station violently shook, and a voice boomed from the PA system. "All hands, level two battlestations! Multiple mobile suits and a single warship are approaching the station!"

Kira Yamato felt a pair of high caliber bullets ping harmlessly off his shoulder and cheek and he snarled in irritation as the holoshroud flickered for a few milliseconds. Even with the Divinity Gundam's advanced sensors at his disposal, it was fast becoming impossible for him to keep track of everything that was happening around him, with at least fourty soldiers firing at him almost constantly, plus the added confusion of the smoke. He snapped both of his blades up into a guarding position in front of himself, feeling the quantum crystal blades shudder as they deflected several more stray bullets in showers of blue and white sparks. His snarl deepened...the damn soldiers were making everything so difficult, with their stupid gunfights. All he wanted to do was kill the annoying bastard who'd tossed a grenade in his face and then rescue Athrun's fiancée. But he couldn't do that while he was dancing for his life in the middle of a crossfire. As he saw it, there were two solutions...he could kill the soldiers, which would be satisfying, but counterproductive in the short term; or he could bring the fight to the soldiers, who were no doubt feeling secure in their fortifications. Tiresome, but it was better than what he was doing. Thought became action with such a smooth transition that one might as well have been the other and he raced for where he remembered the stairway to be.

The soldiers in the stairway landing fortification had no time to react. They were busy maintaining a steady stream of fire into the smoke filled room below and in front of them, with always at least one of them firing while the others reloaded. Without warning a haze of blue and white sparks arrowed towards them through the smoke and then a nightmare hurtled out of the smoke, drawing bits of it after him in his haste like a shroud as he charged directly through their lane of fire, bullets whining and shattering as they struck the durable metal of the shrieking blades he grasped within his fists. The female sergeant was just opening her mouth to call a warning while clawing at her harness for a concussion grenade to stop the monster's advance when Kira struck the somewhat shotworn table the soldiers were covering behind. The table was made from dense, heavy metal, probably stainless steel, and must have weighed at least three or four hundred pounds. The quantum crystal blades chewed through the table as easily as they had the doors less then five minutes earlier, weakening the structure of the steel so that when Kira hit it a millisecond later, the table broke in half at the midpoint, barely slowing his advance at all. The soldiers tumbled backwards, but by then it was too late.

Kira took the female sergeant first, one quantum crystal blade, now posessing a beam edge, spearing forward to impale her through the lower abdomen, kicking out a wash of blood that sprayed all over the area, while his second sword chopped off her reaching arm at mid-forearm before continuing on to pare off a slice of flesh from her side and hip. Her scream thrummed along Kira's nerves in a wave of euphoria as he lifted the impaling sword up through her body while hacking out twice with the other, decapitating the soldier to the right and splitting the one on the left from shoulder to groin. With a contemptuous twist and heave, Kira tossed the flopping corpse of the female sergeant from the end of his blad back over his head to roll disjointedly down the stairway behind him. He was just turning to continue his way up the stairs when he caught sight of a pair of small metallic objects flying his way from the direction of the second floor landing. He reacted on instinct, and before he even fully realized what he was doing, he'd tossed himself back down the stairs, landing in a shoulder roll, keeping his blades out wide to avoid injuring himself. Tough luck for a couple of soldiers, who went down with severed limbs and gashed torsos, but such was life. Behind him, the stairway landing disappeared in twin explosions of fire and red hot shrapnel, which did a good job of vaporizing the bodies lying there, and made a hash from the fortitifications, but not much else.

As Kira rolled to his feet, his blade took another soldier behind her left knee, slicing her lower leg off cleanly. She began to mewl in terror, like humans did when they got badly hurt and Kira absentmindably crushed the side of her skull in with the hilt of his right blade. She dropped like a sack of potatos, not yet dead but fast getting there. He regretted not being able to take the time to do things right and give her a send off everyone else would be sure yo remember, but with a monstrous effort of will he choked back his bloodlust.

"I just want to end this!" Kira roared, as his rail guns and plasma cannons clicked into their firing positions. The sudden appearance of the additional weapons surprising the soldiers, whom had only seen Kira's human image which was being projected by the Divinity Gundam's holoshroud.

"All things are born into this world and eventually they die." Kira calmly sighed, ignoring the hail of bullets which were still pelting him and calmly began to move forward, his plasma cannons and rail guns still in their firing positions. "That is the pure and simple truth."

Even as the holoshroud continued to conceal the Divinity's true form, ten of the DRAGOON units suddenly dropped from the angelic machine's wings and flew through the soldiers closest to Kira, which emerged from the cloud of blood moments later. The Divinity's remaining DRAGOON units swung to the end of its wings, and a field of rainbow colored energy spanned between each wing. Kira smirked, his eyes flashing, before then turning multicolor at the edges, as he ignited the beam saber on the his left wrist and flew straight through the closest group of soldiers, moving so fast that it appeared he had teleported himself from one end of the room to the other.

"W-wh-what the hell are you?" One of the few surviving soldiers asked in terror, as the field of energy slowly faded, the ten feathers on the young man's back assumed their normal configuration, and finally, the rail guns and plasma cannons assumed their standby positions.

"I am what you would call God." Kira calmly answered, even as the remaining DRAGOON units once more docked on his back and the holoshroud once again concealed the remote weapons. "Now, where is Meyrin Hawke?"

"If you're God, you should know where we're keeping that damn coordinator girl." The soldier spat, only to regret his words an instant later, when he found himself staring down the barrels of Kira's twin buster rifle, both muzzles sparking with barely contained electricity.

"How dare you speak of my fiancée like that?" Athrun Zala's voice roared, as the Infinite Justice Gundam suddenly streaked from the same corridor which Kira stood in. Athrun was also utilizing the holoshroud to project his own image over the armor of his Gundam. The two Gundams were less than a foot apart when Kira side-stepped to his left, allowing Athrun to continue forward and to deliver a punishing kick to the soldier's stomach and sending him flying through the air. Athrun had been tempted to utilize one of his leg blades to simply slice the foolish soldier in half from crotch to crown, but he also knew that the man might know where Meyrin was being held. "You stupid fuck!" Athrun snarled, grabbing the soldier out of the air with his right hand, igniting his machine's thrusters before then slamming the soldier roughly against the far wall, the impact nearly knocking the man unconscious. "Tell me where Meyrin Hawke is being held!"

"Go fuck yourself, space monster." The soldier weakly replied.

"Care to repeat that remark, asshole?" Athrun sadisticly grinned, even as he ignited the glowing pink beam saber on his left wrist and brought it to the solider's neck, the flesh slowly cooking due to the intense heat from the beam blade.

"Athrun, you need to calm down." Kira spoke, his voice urgent but calm. "Let me take care of this douchebag."

"You're right, Kira." Athrun said, deactivating his beam saber and letting go of the terrified soldier, before then turning to face his long time friend as his military training once again took over. "I apologize for my ruthless actions."

"Not a problem." Kira smiled. "To be honest, I would have done the exact same thing if someone I loved was captured by an enemy."

Athrun nodded in thanks as he ignited his thrusters and once again took off, speeding further down the corridor, towards the prision block.

_'Hang on, Meyrin, I'm on my way!'_ Meyrin Hawke gasped in surprise when she suddenly heard Athrun's voice in her mind. Meyrin knew that her sister; Lunamaria, and her husband; Shinn, along with Kira and his lovers were all telepathic, but she wasn't aware that she and Athrun were as well.

"Hey, asshole." Kira calmly spoke as a single soldier ran past himself and Hope. Kira and Hope were both concealed beneath their Mirage Colloid, and the soldier's head swiveled rapidly to the side when he heard Kira speak. The man tried to stop, his boots skidding on the metal floor of the passage.

Hope wasted no time in kicking his legs out from under him, falling on him as he lay stunned and caving in his windpipe with a thrust of her hand. She vaporized his sub machine gun with her palm beam cannon, doing the same to the knife and the sphereical grenade on his belt. Kira dove out of the niche and hit the floor next to Hope as she fired her beam rifle, taking down the primary electrical grid on the entire section of this level of the facility. Hope opened up with her rail guns in the dark, aiming down the corridor. It was pitch black, but she didn't really need to see. She just targeted the yellow and red blobs that represented the bodies of the soldiers to her thermal vision.

Emergency red lighting came on within seconds, but it was too late for the inital force of guards, who were all down, wounded or dead. Kira freed and ignited a glowing pink beam saber from his right hip, holding the weapon in his right hand and charged the remains of the force, severing the heads of those who looked like they might have been able to put up a fight. A single soldier tried to edge around a turn about five meters away, crouched down low on the floor. Kira spotted him almost instantly, and took him out by freeing a beam dagger from his left leg and throwing the glowing green energy blade. He threw harder than he meant to, as the knife embedded itself to the hilt in the eye of the soldier.

Athrun scowled as he sped down the corridor. Most of the doors were open and empty, but finally he came to one which was securely locked. Without any hesitation, Athrun delivered a punishing kick to the heavy metal door, the impact forming a huge dent, sending it spiraling into the cell and bouncing off the far wall before finally coming to rest at his feet.

"Athrun!" Meyrin cried out in joy, instantly bounding off the cot on which she sat, running to her fiancé and tightly embracing him.


	75. Collapsing Realities

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 75**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

Kira raised an eyebrow as he walked into the pilot's lounge a few days later, only to come face to face with a man who appeared to be in his thirties, with brown eyes and brown hair, and wearing a black business suit.

"Umm...can I help you?" Kira asked, even though he was still merged with the Divinity Gundam.

"Why don't you have a seat over there?" The man calmly asked, pointing towards one of the many tables.

"Just who the fuck are you?" The amethyst-eyed man growled, even as he brought all of the Divinity's weapons out of their standby mode. Normally, Kira wouldn't even dream of firing his weapons while onboard the Excalibur, but the current situation was rapidly turning into an exception. "And how exactly did you manage to get onboard my ship?"

"Why don't you have a seat?" The man repeated.

"Why don't you answer the question which your God has asked of you?" Kira sighed as he utilized his abilities to teleport himself and the unknown man down to the Earth's surface, somewhere near Chernobyl, Ukraine. It was dark, according to the Divinity's clock, the local time was 4:35 in the morning. Kira didn't like to openly admit the fact that he was a God, but it usually got quite a reaction, especially when he did so while utilizing some of his more divine powers.

Before the other man could reply, however, a girl with dead, black eyes that wept bile and deathly pale white skin, appeared. The thing moved without ever actually moving its legs as it stalked towards the two men. Kira sighed slightly as the creature lunged at him and began peeling the skin from his holographic body, completely unaware of the blood red light that was now eminating from the amethyst-eyed man.

"Bitch." Kira growled, igniting the beam saber on his left wrist and effortlessly slicing the creature's right arm off at the shoulder. As the creature jumped away from Kira's brightly glowing form, a loud scream echoed through the darkness, it was a wail of unrestrained pain, fear and anger. Kira scowled as his holographic body quickly regenerated, while the creature looked to its now severed right arm and began sobbing to herself, the pitiful gasping of one without a shred of hope left.

"You dare to attack a God?" Kira snarled, even as the other man, whom his computers had finally identified as Chris Hansen, a somewhat famous NBC News correspondent, suddenly vanished without a trace. Kira once more rested his gaze on his supernatural attacker. "You will pay dearly for your blatant stupidity." The amethyst-eyed man continued as the holoshroud slowly faded, once again revealing the true form of the Divinity Gundam, the angelic machine already glowing with the blood red light of Trans-Am.

The Divinity's eyes lit up with a bright purple light, even as the angel-winged machine trained all four of its searchlights on the sobbing creature in front of it. Without any hesitation, Kira deactivated the beam saber and freed both of his beam rifles, aiming them at the creature, which was now rising to its feet.

"You want to try and kill me, you bitch?" Kira snarled. "So, you're the whore that screamed 'witness' into my phone, aren't you?" He asked, barely containing his rage. "I admit that if I weren't a God, I would be dead now, but you picked the wrong person to try and kill."

"I don't think I can do this event justice, but I'll try." The voice of a female news reporter suddenly blared from the Divinity's external loudspeakers. "Every single river, every single lake, every single natural source of water appears to have instantly and simultaneously dried up, without any rational explanation." There was a short pause before the reporter continued. "It now appears that this event wasn't restricted solely to natural sources, either. We are getting reports that bottle water has also vanished, as did that in water tanks and other similar sources. It now appears that there is not a single drop of freshwater left anywhere on Earth for anybody to drink."

"What the fuck did you do?" Kira snarled at the creature, which was now grinning from ear to ear, revealing a mouth filled with blood soaked teeth. "Stupid bitch." Kira fumed as he returned the Divinity Gundam to its normal size and slammed his left foot down on the creature, crushing it with a splat, leaving a relatively small bloodstain on the underside of the machine's left foot.

Now, as Kira sat at the head of the table in the Excalibur's main conference room, less then one hour later, some of the worst results which could possibly be caused by the lack of water were beginning to occur.

Without pressurized water, most of the nuclear reactors in the world, specifically those that utilized purified water as coolant, had no available sources of coolant, and just under half of these had poor or untested failsafe plans. The effect of this led to catastrophic nuclear meltdown in roughly 46% of water-cooled reactors. The world, already reeling from the unprecedented situation, fell into total anarchy within the first four hours after the event.

International communication ceased after almost exactly 24 hours after the water had initially vanished.

"Why aren't we helping?" Lacus asked, close to tears as she, along with the other senior officers whom had gathered in the conference room, watched the events continue to unfold on the planet below.

"Because we didn't cause this, Lacus." Hope calmly answered, even as she rested her feet on the table and put her hands behind her head.

"Kira, I'm detecting a really weird life sign approaching the conference ro-" Lexi began, only to be cut off mid-sentence when her holographic image suddenly vanished, causing a chill to spread like liquid fire down the spine of everyone in the conference room. As Kira prepared to continue with the briefing, he decided that a quick glance out of the peep hole would help calm the restless minds of everyone in the room. The chill worsened with each step he took towards the door. He pressed his right hand against the cold, metal door and took a deep breath before leading his eye to the peep hole.

At first, the amethyst-eyed man could only see an inky blackness which somehow seemed to swirl within itself. When he blinked in surprise, the void melted away. He wished it hadn't. In its place, there stood what he could only guess was once a man. The limbs were long and inhumanly awkward, with bulky joints branching off into several arms, not unlike the branches of a tree. The creature was draped in a black suit, somehow making the thing more nightmarish. The icing on the proverbial cake, however, was what passed as the hellish thing's face. It was as though his mind blurred the ghastly visage to spare itself further shock and horror.

Kira shoved himself away from the door with the hand still pressed against it. The amethyst-eyed man tried to crawl away from the door. He knew, somehow, that his mind hadn't been playing tricks on him. As he crab walked away from the door, he along with everyone else in the room, watched as tendrils as black as the void he first saw snaked around through the cracks underneath the door.

All of the assembled Gundam Miesters quickly dropped their holoshrouds, revealing the machines with which they had been merged, and in less time than it took to blink; the Akatsuki, Chimera, Destiny, Divinity, Eclipse, Infinite Justice, Destiny Impulse, Strike Freedom and Twilight Gundams all stood around the table, defending their unarmored allies. As the black tendrils gripped the MCPS armored door and began to pry it open, a hellstorm of beam blasts erupted from the nine Gundams, the energy beams searing the air as they lashed towards the strange creature on the other side of the door.

As the heavy door was forced open, smoke pillowing from the motors as they tried futilely to keep the passage blocked, the creature came into focus. It had long, tangled hair, matted with blood, falling down her shoulders, its mouth was filled with countless razor-sharp, blood-soaked teeth.

Suddenly, a loud clang echoed through the room, followed by an equally loud whirring as the motors finally gave out and the door steadily opened. Kira felt something cold on his hand. he was paralyzed with fear. It was sharp and it was cold and it was moving up his arm towards his elbow.

"Come out to play." The creature said in a lilting, upsetting voice.

"Go fuck yourself." Kira snarled as all nine of the Gundams unleashed a full-burst from their weapons, vaporizing the supernatural entity. "These merged realities are becoming ridiculous."


	76. Poisoned Timelines

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 76**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

"So have you spotted them yet?" Cagalli asked Kira, her tone caught between boredom and relish. The Akatsuki was poking the haft of its recently equipped beam scythe into the dirt, drawing little random patterns before scuffing them away with its foot and repeating the process, an obvious sign of too much energy and not enough outlet. The Destiny, Divinity, Destiny Impulse and Strike Freedom all remained reletively motionless as their pilots carefully watched the horizon. While every other person in the Celestial Being defense force was praying for just another few minutes before the Earth Alliance forces got in range to start their attack, Cagalli was impatient for them to arrive and would have likely flown off to attack them first herself, if it wasn't for one overriding concern; she was just as anxious as Kira was to find the Orb Gundams.

Kira was looking at the data feeds from flocks of remote camera drones and high powered telephoto lenses from atop the tall buildings of the nearby town of Munich, which were just starting to show some details on the advancing Earth Alliance columns. He knew that Cagalli had the exact same sort of access to the intelligence data as he himself did, but lately, Cagalli just demanded that other people fill her in on the pertinent details. Kira did not reply to Cagalli's question, doing his best to ignore the presence of the woman, as much as that was possible anyway. The Earth Alliance vanguard seemed to be made mostly up of their regular ground forces, battalions of main battle tanks and infantry fighting vehicles spread out in dozens of phalanxes behind a light screen of armored personel carriers and lighter all terrain vehicle scout jeeps. Behind that came a staggered line of super-heavy tanks, at least twenty of them in just the first row or two of the loose formation. Looming behind and above the super-heavy tanks were the manta-like forms of Aigaion-class aerial aircraft carriers and various classes of land battleships. Kira couldn't see them, but he surmised that the main infantry troops of the attack force were arrayed behind the landships, waiting with the artillery corps for the assault vehicles to engage the defenses and soften up the defenders before rushing forward to swamp through.

However what he didn't see was any signs of Orb forces among the slowly approaching horde, and precious few Earth Alliance mobile suits as well, save for a few combat construction modified machines hitching rides on the upper surfaces of the landships. He knew they were in the area, Faith had personally confirmed her encounter with them and a Gundam that sounded very much like the Strike, and had tasked a small battalion with tracking the Orb ships for as long as they remained outside their home country. A few days ago, off of the coast of Madagascar, over half the remaining Orb fleet had suddenly disappeared from the ocean, which Kira knew to mean that the Archangel had lifted off and proceeded onwards in hover mode, while the other ships had probably been sunk in one way or another. Kira tried to get inside Murrue's head, both figuratively and literally, and even though it was her past-self, it was somewhat harder than he'd expected it to be. He'd fought under her command for so long, you'd think he'd have a better grasp of her tactical mindset. But then again, he'd never really had to worry about what the Archangel was doing, precisely because Murrue was such an able commander. And with Mu La Flaga, and Kira's past-self there too, there was absolutely no telling what sort of crazy, brilliant plan they were hatching!

"Aww, are you still mad at me, Kira?" Cagalli prodded him verbally, a rictus grin on her face. "Everyone seems so sore over a minor little incident...why so serious?"

"Mad does not even come close to describing how I feel about you right now, Cagalli." Kira replied, after a few moments more of peering at the data feeds. "And that 'minor' incident ended up with one of my friends, who also happens to be one of the most valued and beloved officers in Celestial Being, in a catatonic state because of the trauma you inflicted upon her!"

"How was I supposed to know that Lacus was so fragile? She came to me boasting about how there was no way anything I could do would hurt her, because of what she'd endured in the past. I can't let that sort of challenge go unanswered, Kira, you know that." Cagalli shrugged the Akatsuki's shoulders. "Just goes to show, some people just can't handle gratitude."

"Gratitude!" Kira half turned the Divinity towards the Akatsuki, one of his hands dropping towards the grip of a beam rifle. "You ripped off her clothes, repeatedly raped her, broke her wrists and several other bones, flayed half the skin off her back and clawed most of the rest of her body into bloody wreckage and did something to her mind that made that resilient, loving and carefree girl retreat into herself as a drooling mess for almost a week before she even responded slightly to outside stimuli! She's still in the infirmary, she won't be fully recovered physically until sometime early next year, and she may never recover fully emotionally! You call that gratitude?" Kira shook his head angrily. "I don't know why I'm surprised, this is how you've been lately, Cagalli. I guess I was just deluding myself. But you seemed to get along with her before. I guess you were just lulling her into a state of overconfidence, or something."

"Your rancor wounds me deeply, Kira." Cagalli smirked. "I would have thought you'd be happy."

"We don't have time for this shit." Kira said through gritted teeth.

"Ah, why the sudden change of topic?"

"It's not that." Kira growled. He pointed with the Divinity's right arm, out along the eastern shore of the lake, where a new warship and a group of mobile suits had appeared from the early morning haze, the warship having a very familiar appearance, twin bows projecting forward, a pair of high vertical fins in the rear, a single large wing underneath the central hull and a bridge tower rising up in the middle of the ship. "I see them. The Orb forces. They're over there..."

"You know when the last time I felt this tense before a major engagement was?" Yzak commented, twitching the Duel's right hand near the grip of his beam rifle, his Gundam's feet firmly planted as he stood atop the Archangel's forward deck. Athrun and the Infinite Justice stood to the Duel's left, with Meyrin's custom GuAIZ Experimental Firearms Type to the left of the Justice, while Dearka, Miriallia and the Buster stood behind the ship's superstructure on the rear deck, balancing out the weight with three Gundams in front and the big one in the rear. Flocks of Murasames in mobile armor form flew close range combat air patrols around the Archangel. The Dominion, along with Kira's past-self and his Freedom Gundam, and Mu and his CFA-44 Nosferatu, were still submerged in the lake, heading towards the rear flanks of the enemy main defenses, planning to assault and try and capture the enemy command element to bring the battle to a swift close as soon as the main Earth Alliance force engaged in combat. There was no need for a protracted seige and destructive bombardment, if a lightning surprise assault could cut off the head of the snake, the body would have little choice but to surrender. The only other choice was to fight without leadership, and that was a simple death sentence.

"I can think of any number of times that I've felt this tense." Dearka replied, his voice subdued because of that very tension. Bad enough that he and Miriallia would soon be in life threatening danger. "Mostly against the Archangel and the Strike in the first war."

"The Archangel and the Strike never really got to me." Yzak replied with a shrug of his Gundam's shoulders. "I mean, they got to me a little. But really, the last time I was this nervous about a battle...it was Operation Spitbreak. That was my first real major military deployment, I mean like, front line mass chaos battle. I could never admit it back then, but before the launch order came down, I almost left my cockpit and hid in the ready room. And nobody better say a fucking word! Fear is normal for a soldier, especially a young one! And I didn't happen to have any friends around at the moment, because they were all assholes who either got undeserved promotions or captured by the enemy; it was just me and Le Crueset, and he wasn't exactly a man you just approach with something like that!"

"The last time I was this nervous was the time I deployed against Kira for the first time after we swore that the next time we'd meet, we'd try to kill each other for real." Athrun admitted. "I bet none of you realized it, I was kind of in shock, you probably thought I was just focused or something, but I was shaking so hard inside my flight suit I could barely launch. And then Nicol died and all my fear was replaced with anger and..." Athrun trailed off, the Infinite Justice shaking its head for a moment or two. "I had hoped I'd never have to feel that way again...either because I'd thought I killed him...or because we were on the same side, fighting for the same things, together."

"I hope you don't feel that way again either." Dearka replied, with forced jocularity. "Because there's just the three of us now, so if you do get that feeling you hate that means there's only two of us left, one of which has to be you, and that idea doesn't sit well with me. Especially because one of the other choices involves a dual occupancy Gundam!"

"Could you guys _please shut up_!" Meyrin demanded, her voice shrill. "This speculation might be touching back in Orb, in a group therapy session at a nice resteraunt. Here, on the battlefield, with the possibility we could be facing off against a future version of Kira who kills people, is _not_ the place I want to think about how likely it could be that we die or how we would feel if our friends died! I want to scream and hide in a corner, believe me, and if I wasn't in this Gundam equivelent mobile suit,_ I would be doing just that_!"

"Hear, hear." Miriallia agreed with finality. "I normally love listening to you guys distress as a group, it's heartwarming what you guys will admit to each other when the chips are down. But we don't know where Kira's future-self is, and what he is doing or feeling. I am scared nearly out of my mind, because unlike you three, I have never had to deal with Kira as an enemy. He's only ever been on my side, protecting me. But even as my friend, as my protector before Dearka stepped up to fill that role, Kira intimidated the hell out of me when I saw his battlefield performance. And he's only ever gotten better and stronger! So lets not talk about what we'd feel if death comes calling, because I can't think about that and still function at the same time. We all have families to get back to, please...let's talk about something else..."

"Crazy weather, isn't it?" Dearka said, after a short pause, even though his voice was still subdued and the attempt at humor fell flat. That had never stopped him before though, and he wasn't about to let it stop him now either. "Have you guys noticed that we never seem to get a battle on a clear, sunny day anymore? It used to happen all the time back when we were first tooling around, but now its always storm clouds and dust and...oh shit!" Dearka's voice cracked. Words failing him, he raised the Buster's left arm, the limb shivering like he was hypothermic, and sent out an electronic ping to the others, showing his point of aim. And the five very recognizable Gundams that were standing half a dozen miles away; the Akatsuki, Destiny, Divinity, Destiny Impulse, and Strike Freedom.

The Divinity Gundam was pointing back at the Archangel, even as the Akatsuki stepped up eagerly and waved a huge clawed hand at them in a taunting gesture, the Destiny combined both of its beam rifles and freed its long range beam cannon, before then moving into a prone position, even as the Destiny Impulse freed a pair of twin buster rifles from its back and moved behind the Destiny, while the Strike Freedom spread its majestic blue wings and took to the air, freeing both of its beam rifles as it began to hover above its allies.

"Fuck me..." Athrun breathed, unable to believe his eyes. They were about to face off against the Akatsuki, Destiny, Divinity, Destiny Impulse, and Strike Freedom. But the Divinity Gundam, the one with the angelic wings, was the one that scared them all. "Fuck me..." Athrun repeated in a strangled tone.

"Okay. I will." Meyrin answered, her tone just as constricted. "As much as you like, in any way you want, Athrun. As long as we go home first. Right now."

"We can't go home. We can't run away from this." Kira's past-self replied from the cockpit of the Freedom Gundam, his heart pounding in his chest until he felt like he was going to pass out.

"Begging your pardon, Kira, but yes we can! We can run away and I want to do it! Now!" Meyrin yelled back hysterically.

"I've never backed down from a fight in my life, and I won't start now." Yzak interrupted her, his voice steely. "Kira is right, this is a confrontation we can't avoid. We can either do it on our terms, or it will come to us when we aren't ready for it. I prefer the former."

"Let me out of this thing then! Let me out!" Meyrin demanded furiously. "I can't fight Kira! I can't! He's too powerful! He'll destroy us!"

"Calm down, _now_!" Athrun's stern voice, which was coming from a private communications channel, shut her up as effectively as a gag. "That's better. I completely understand your fear. But we can't let it beat us. I'm sorry to do this to you, but I need you by my side or I can't be effective, not really. Trust in me, Meyrin. Trust in me."

For her part, Miriallia was glad that Meyrin had voiced her fear, because it meant that she didn't have to. Judging by the prolonged silence on the communications line, she figured that Athrun and Meyrin were most likely having it out on a private channel.

"Are we agreed?" Yzak finally asked, after a few more seconds of silence.

"We're agreed." Miriallia replied at once.

"Yes, we're with you too." Athrun added, the tone in his voice daring anyone to question Meyrin's breakdown. No one would. No one could, if anything, she'd just been the most honest of all of them.

"Lead us, Athrun." Yzak said. "Kira is a friend to all of us...but you and he, well..."

"I know." Athrun replied, feathering his thrusters, lifting the Justice off the ship's deck as it slowly drifted to a halt, having reached its pre-battle readiness position, the crew standing at alert as targeting solutions were plotted against the five Celestial Being Gundams. "Last time it was him who got through to me and got me walking on the right path. It's about time I returned the favor." He switched to a broad channel addressing all the Orb forces. "We're going to talk with him. Keep all weapons powered up but not aimed, and be ready for evasive maneuvers in an instant. If things get ugly, shoot to kill. We cannot take chances with these two Gundams, any hesitations, any at all, and you will die. But no one will fire until I give the order, or unless attacked. And even then, I would urge you to carefully consider what you regard as an attack, because again, if this escalates into an armed conflict...well...you've all been briefed on them. So, I don't need to tell you how bad it could get." Without waiting for an acknowledgement, Athrun sent the Justice jetting towards the five Celestial Being Gundams, flanked shortly afterwards by the GuAIZ, the Duel and the Buster.

It was a short flight, too short for Athrun's liking, he still hadn't managed to calm his heart down or clear his dry and cracked throat by the time he landed, barely a long stone's throw away from the Divinity. The Divinity took a half step forward, putting itself between the Orb Gundams and the Celestial Being Gundam, who seemed content enough for the moment to stand back and observe the situation unfold. Kira, if that was Kira, and Athrun knew it was, seemed to be waiting for Athrun to make the first move. _'We are the ones that drove him away after all, it should be us that makes the apology first.'_ Athrun reminded himself.

"Kira..." Athrun said, before choking on the rest of his sentence.

"Athrun." Kira didn't seem to be having any trouble speaking, though his tone was curt and cool.

"I...We, I mean...we're sorry, Kira." Athrun managed to blurt out. "We were wrong to not believe in you...we were..."

"Yes, you are sorry." Kira replied, his tone becoming slightly edged. "You ought to be."

"Damn it, Kira!" Athrun finally found the key to speaking, to let go of his normal tight emotional control. "I'm trying to apologize to you, there's no need for you to make this harder than it is!"

Kira sighed, but for the life of him he was finding it hard to muster the desire for this conversation. He'd been dreading this moment for weeks, but now...now he was just tired of it, already. The apology was expected, but Athrun couldn't really think it would make any difference now, could he? Kira was sorry too, but even so, it couldn't change what the current situation was. "I understand your apology, Athrun. I'm glad you've realized the true scale of the mistake you all made. But...what difference does it make? You're sorry...I'm sorry...we're all sorry...but it doesn't matter now. As much as we might want them to, things cannot go back to the way they were."

"What are you trying to say, Kira?" Athrun demanded in reply. "That it's hopeless? That the apology is meaningless? Am I not your friend, despite the mistakes I've made, despite the mistakes you've made? Am I not your friend, Kira?"

"I don't know anymore, Athrun." Kira answered in a dead tone. "I'd like it if we were still friends, but so much shit is between us now...we are standing on opposite sides of a line in the sand. Of my line in the sand. I never dreamed, in my worst nightmares, that this would happen to us again, not after the first time. But after what happened to my children during my last visit to Orb, I've come to realize...my worst nightmares were just the beginning..."

"You can come back any time you want, Kira! We know who committed those crimes now!" Athrun did his best not to look at the Excalibur, silently floating above and behind Kira, though that was pretty damned hard. "No one will blame you for what happened. You were right, we were wrong and we want to show you that we acknowledge that. Please, Kira, come back to Orb with us. Everyone misses you."

"And do you know who I miss, Athrun?" Kira said, his voice creaking with self control. "I miss my children. I miss Akira. I miss Aoi. Both of whom were murdered in an act of sensless violence while at the Orb National Mall!"

"They are dead. I'm sorry, Kira. Your children were as precious to me and Meyrin as our own children. But they are dead, Kira. We can only miss them now, and try to move on with life. I can't say I know how you feel., but we're your family, Kira, even when we mess up royally. We love you, and we can forgive you for anything, as long as you can forgive us too!" Athrun's eyes were hot and stinging, unabashedly crying as he pleaded with his friend from the bottom of his heart.

"You can forgive me anything?" Kira's tone was so sharp that Athrun physically recoiled, wondering how he'd managed to make Kira angry. "What have I done to you that requires your forgiveness?"

"What do you think!" Yzak suddenly cut in, his voice furious, as the Duel pointed accusingly over Kira's shoulder, at the warship Excalibur. "You're telling me that just because you lost your children to some random murderer, you're suddenly allowed to go around carelessly wielding that kind of power and not expect us to try and stop you!" Yzak bellowed, the Duel taking a step forward until its path was blocked by the Justice's desperate arm. "You're a human being, Kira!"

"A human being? A human being!" Kira spat back with a bitter and sarcastic laugh. "According to the Earth Allaince, I am not a human being either. Neither are Lacus, Hope, Cagalli, Murrue or Mayu. None of us are human. None of the over six million people living onboard the ship floating above us...none of them are _human_, not according to the Earth Alliance! According to those assholes, none of us have even a single human right, because _we aren't human to them_, we are classified as illegal medical experiments! They can and have done anything they want to us, _anything at all_! This is not a war of reclamation, this is a war of genocide and extermination, and you are siding with the people committing the genocide! You are saying, just by standing where you are right now, that it is okay for them to do whatever they want to Coodinators, _to members of your own race, even a child_, including torturing them and killing them, because _we aren't humans_, as defined by your _shitty leadership_! I'm not the one who needs forgiveness...you're the ones who need to beg forgiveness...not from me, but from each and every one of the millions of bereaved parents and siblings and children who have had their families stolen away at gunpoint by the Earth Alliance, simply because they weren't lucky enough to be evacuated into space with the rest of you and they didn't die from the radation from GENESIS! These people..._my people_...are being persecuted and exterminated simply because we didn't do what the Earth Alliance propoganda said had to happen! Simply because we don't fit into the world as imagined by those buttfucks!"

"Planning to drop weapons of mass destruction on Orb isn't the way to protest that though!" Athrun shouted back. "Orb was, is and always has been a peaceful nation that has done whatever it can to help those in need even when it costs us dearly to do so! You are a human being, as human as I am, if not moreso! But the solution to violence isn't more violence, Kira, we have fought side by side in countless wars during the last few millenia in order to prove that very point! You may not like it, but the fact is that we were considering joining the Alliance, and you attacked us without warning, detonating a nuclear bomb in civilian territory, killing hundreds, including Erica Simmons, who we found with her decapitated head skewered on a sign post with a taunting message written beneath it! Orb does not interfere in the affairs of other nations, and we do not allow other nations to interfere in ours...I know that isn't currently the case but we are working on legally attaining independence from the Alliance, you know that. We don't attack other nations. We don't allow other nations to attack us. You attacked us. This is your war, Kira."

"No. I agree that attacking Orb was stupid, but this is not my war. I did not start this shit, I simply escalated it. Orb and the Earth Alliance just joined a war that has been raging for millions of years already. A covert war between peaceful groups of people who just want to live their lives and raise their families in a world that is already far too hostile to human life as is, without interference; and a select group of people in the Earth Alliance who, because of their own stupidity, cannot accept the existence of Coordinators, any more than Blue Cosmos could accept them, and for the same damn reason. Because they are so fucking stupid they fear, irrationally, that we intend to replace them, dominate them, and make them somehow obsolete. Because there is money and power to be had in the hating and persecution of us Coordinators." Kira snarled as he pointed up at the Excalibur.


	77. Divinity, Justice and Apocalypse

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 77**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

The air suddenly turned to pure white light, the clouds instantly scattering away as a huge gap was blown through the sky from high above, as a beam of coherent light, each as thick as the Archangel was tall, streaked down from the heavens and slammed into the ground, right on top of the six Celestial Being Gundams, the green-white glare of GENESIS blinding to everyone present for a dozen miles, a column of laser light that briefly connected heaven to earth. His eyes watering and tearing up, the Infinite Justice's polarizing lenses being all that had saved him from permanent eye damage, Athrun staggered backwards, falling onto his butt next to the Buster and Duel as they both shied away as well, golden sparks crawling along their armor just from the proximity heat of the blast, the ground turning to glass beneath their feet, as rippling waves of heat distortion expanded outward in a five mile wide shockwave where the air itself ignited from the residual heat. "KIRA! Noooo!" Athrun screamed in disbelief, frantically toggling onto the command channel for the Earth Alliance forces. "What the fuck did you just do, you fools!"

"Calm yourself, Commander Zala." The cold, slick voice of Rey Ze Burrel replied, the triumphant smirk on his face evident even without Athrun having to look. His voice practically oozed with arrogant smugness. "I actually must thank you, without you and your friends keeping them busy, we never would have been able to precisely calibrate our shot in time. Normally a target the size of a Gundam would be very hard to hit with the GENESIS, especially through the atmosphere. You are to be commended, you lured their Gundams out and staked them down and we were able to take a one out of a hundred shot to remove them from the board before the game even started!"

"You moron! You have no idea what you've just done!" Athrun yelled, veins throbbing in his face as a murderous red rage descended upon him.

"I know exactly what I've done." Rey retorted icily, as the GENESIS beam winked out, leaving the area around the Orb Gundams shrouded in smoke and dust and embers that obscured all vision for more than three miles in every direction, the ground charred white and glassy in a huge circle around them. "I've just half won this battle already. I was going to offer you the credit, but if you're going to be this way about it..."

"Credit! You fucking idiot!" Athrun howled in disbelief. "Didn't you read the report on the Divinity's first combat deployment!"

"It was just a Gundam, there's no way it could have survived even an indirect hit from GENESIS." Rey answered defensively. "I doubt that even your precious Mirror Coated Phase Shift armor could take that."

"The Divinity's DRAGOON units, you stupid jackass! They can refract and reflect any form of beam weapon!" Athrun forced himself to stop shouting, he was going to need his voice in the future. Mostly because of Rey's hunger for glory and inattention to detail. "You haven't killed them...you've just really pissed them off!" Athrun brought the Infinite Justice up to a standing position once more, as the smoke began to clear around the center of the glass zone, where he could distinctly make out six humanoid shapes beneath the glowing dome of a beam shield, with half a dozen DRAGOON unts projecting the glowing dome, a wide trench digging into the Earth's bowels forming a perfect circle around the position of the six Celestial Being Gundams. The eyes of the Divinity flashed purple, the eyes of the Akatsuki flashed blue, the eyes of the Strike Freedom flashed yellow and finally, the eyes of the Destiny and the Destiny Impulse flashed green.

"Can we kill them now?" Hope asked sardonically, as she brought the Destiny back up to its full height. "Or would you like to parlay some more, give them a second chance to snipe us from orbit?"

"We can kill them now. I was a fool to trust them. The Earth Alliance has never treated others fairly if they had any choice in the matter. I don't know why I expected differently. I must still be a bit insane, expecting different results from the same process all the time." Kira replied caustically, chiding himself for his continued faith in those who seemed to be determined to remain faithless.

"Are you sure, Kira? They are our friends after all..." Hope said, the concern in her voice a crueler taunt than any mere agreement could have been

"They were our friends, yes. We don't seem to have any friends in Orb anymore." Kira answered bitterly. He looked up at the sky, along the path that the shot from GENESIS had taken. "I'll be back in a bit." Kira told the other four Gundam Miesters, before the Divinity leapt into the sky and transformed into its mobile armor mode, headed for orbit and the gamma-ray laser known as GENESIS.

The other four watched the Divinity receed into the sky. Then they turned their attention to the three still slightly dazed Orb Gundams in front of them. Cagalli twirled her scythe happily around herself, making the scorched air whine and scream as she sliced it apart. "Yzak Joule. Athrun Zala. Meyrin Hawke. Dearka Elsman. Miriallia Haw. It's been too long." She stopped the scythe in mid spin, and put both hands on the shaft. "The crucible of conflict screams your names...time to strike the iron!" And with those words, she charged straight at them, her scythe drawn back for a cleaving blow that could have sundered all three of the machines in half if it had landed. However, the Duel was there to meet the charge of the Akatsuki with a blitz of its own, holding a deceptively slender two handed sword in both its hands, the blade glowing an actinic blue, like an arcing spark frozen in time. The physical blade met and scraped along the inner edge of the Akatsuki's scythe, before locking against where the blade met haft, arresting the swing of the threshing tool and locking the two Gundams in a momentary clinch, thrusters throbbing as they each pushed at each other. Yzak was forced to break the clash and fall back behind his beam shield, however, when the Strike Freedom began to snipe at him from above.

"Athrun..." Cagalli sighed as the Akatsuki turned to face the Infinite Justice and began to almost casually move towards the crimson machine.

"Cagalli..." Athrun quietly replied, even as he ignited his beam shield and took a half step backwards. Athrun most certianly didn't want to fight against Cagalli. Millenia ago, long before either of them became immortal, they had been in a fairly serious relationship. Although their relationship eventually ended up being one which had parted, the break up itself had been done on very good terms, so the two of them could never hate each other. In fact, Athrun considered Kira and his lovers to be family.

"I'm not going to fight you, Athrun." Cagalli said after a few short seconds. "You should go after Kira." Athrun hesitated for a moment, but then the Justice leapt into the air, transformed into its mobile armor mode and sped after the Divinity.

"KIRA!" Kira heard his name shouted across the communications line that he'd had open with Athrun and the others, and he looked behind himself just in time to flick the Divinity into a barrel roll, barely avoiding the winged form of the Justice as it blasted past him in mobile armor mode. The Justice's mobile armor mode greatly resembeled that of the Aegis, only with the addition of a pair of wings, which were formed by the subflight lifter. The crimson machine made a slick transition back to its mobile suit form once Athrun had passed him, putting himself squarely between Kira and the not so distant form of GENESIS as it floated in geosynchronous orbit, high above the huge mass of storm clouds covering Munich. "Stop this! This is crazy! You're not seriously going to kill all of those soldiers, are you?"

"I don't want to fight you, Athrun." Kira said resolutely.

"I don't want to fight you either!" Athrun replied, his eyes wet with tears. "So let's..."

"But if you persist in getting in my way, I won't have a choice. I'm sorry." Kira drew one of his beam rifles and pointed it at the Justice. The air around them lit up with glowing green energy bolts as a pair of Nazca-class ships fired their beam cannons towards the surface, targeting the Excalibur as it hovered far below, even as dozens of other streaks of light in the upper atmosphere indicated the descending paths of heavy bombardment artillery shells and missiles, as well as beam and positron blasts from the secondary batteries of the numerous escort vessels. Off to the side, dozens of fat bodied bulk transport spaceplanes were dislodging drop pods filled with mobile suits, until a steady rain of the pods glowed red as they powered down through the atmosphere. On the ground, the land battleships were deploying more mobile suits, to stiffen the first wave of assault vehicles, while even more mobile suits and vehicles began moving up from the back of the convoy formations.

"Please, Kira...don't do this...this is madness!" Athrun pleaded.

"This is my world now." Kira growled.

"Damn it, Kira! I can't let you do this!" Athrun yelled, his voice conquered by equal parts sadness and fury. He freed a pair of Ion Disintegrator rifles from his machine's hips and fired, aiming for Kira's wings and legs, hoping to bring his best friend down and disabled without killing him.

"You just made a big mistake. A mistake which I once made myself." Kira replied, rolling out of the way of the blue-white beams, and coming up to face Athrun directly. No more just brushing him aside, Athrun wasn't so weak that he could just let him fly about forever. One of them was going to have to go down. "Do you recall when? It was when I thought that I had lost everything after the end of the Second Bloody Valentine War. By the time one month had passed, I had become so depressed that I ended up taking my own life. That was definitely one of the biggest mistakes of my life. And now, you've just made it yourself. You can't let me do this, Athrun? You _must_ let me do this, or I will have to kill you."

"They have lives and families too!" Athrun retorted fiercely, aiming his rifles and firing once more, this time some of the DRAGOON units deployed and bent the searing beam blasts away from the Divinity, spearing off into the distant parts of the atmosphere harmlessly. "They're not just faceless goons! They're just following orders and doing what they believe is right!"

"I know. That is exactly why war is so terribly sad. Those who truly deserve to die in a war so rarely do, it's always the innocent fools they deceive into taking up their cause that eat up the casualties. But innocent or not, those casualties are part and parcel of what makes war so awful, and I will inflict as many of them as is necessary for you 'humans' to realize that war itself is insanity and cannot be allowed to happen, for any reason!" Kira could not contain some tears of his own. "Lenore has already lost her cousins. And now...her father too. My poor niece..." Kira holstered his beam rifles, raised the Divinity's palms and fired at Athrun, a single shot from each ion disintegrator. The Justice twisted and turned frantically, Athrun was clearly familiar with the ability of those little red flares to penetrate armor and shields. Those had not been warning or disabling shots, those had been aimed at the torso.

Athrun's blood had run cold the moment he realized that Kira had meant to kill him with those shots. This was no longer just angst and heartbreak, the Kira Yamato he'd long known and loved like a brother...that Kira was gone now. There was only the Gundam Miester and Supreme Commander of Celestial Being in there now. It would take someone with a stronger connection to Kira than Athrun to break him out of the madness that had swept over him. But did anyone like that still exist? Even Kira's five lovers seemed to have been cut away from his heart by the recent events. The five of them still followed his orders, but only because they respected him that much.

_'Forgive me, everyone...it's come to the worst case scenario already. I don't have a choice. I'm so sorry...'_ Athrun clamped down with his teeth, almost biting his cheek as he fought to stomp all of his pity, sympathy and pain down into the deepest recesses of his soul. He could no longer afford them. "Kira..." He whispered. "Your sacrifices will never be forgotten by the people of Orb. You will forever be remembered as our hero. The entire nation, no the entire world, will bow down in respect to you, I will make a point of that, but it will have to be a posthumous outpouring of respect." His eyes were dry and determined. His hands were steady. His heart was broken.

The emerald green seed dropped through the vastness of his mind, before striking that invisible terminating surface and detonating, filling him with light and life and power, his eyes fading to metallic green sheens.

Athrun suddenly found himself fighting madly for his life, parrying a flurry of quantum crystal anti-ship sword slashes with his physical shield, the armor of the Justice had been impregnated with quantum crystal slivers for exactly this reason, to prevent them from being sliced in half like they were made of butter. Embedding slivers of quantum crystal was much cheaper and less time consuming than making fully quantum crystal weaponry and shields. The Justice and the Divinity were close to equally matched in size, mass and strength, and thus; neither could beat down the other's guard. Which was why Athrun was so surprised when, after making one parry, Kira lost his grip on his left hand sword, the crystalline blade spinning end over end as it dropped away from them. Before he could react to take advantage of his numerical superiority in weaponry, the Divinity's eyes flashed amethyst as the angelic machine suddenly swung its left hand up above its head. Athrun barely had time to blink in shock as the dropped sword unexpectedly came spinning back up the gravity well, aimed at the middle of his back, and only an instinctive, desperate dodge prevented the Justice from being cut in half at the waist. As it was, Athrun had lost both legs from the midcalf down.

The Divinity snagged the sword out of the air and sheathed it, Athrun's evasive maneuver having allowed Kira time to put a few hundred meters of distance between them. The left hand grabbed one of the beam rifles and snap-fired a flurry of blasts at the crimson machine's chest. Still unbalanced from his previous evasive maneuver, Athrun knew that he would not be able to dodge again in time. Frantically, he thrust both arms in front of himself, throwing all available power into the beam shields as well as the geschmeidig panzer energy deflection armor on his machine's arms. Much to Athrun's elation, the glowing green blast did stop, about fifty meters away from him, safely captured by the Justice's energy deflection armor. "KIRA!" Athrun screamed angrily, thrusting his arms and hurling the searing bolt back at the Divinity.

"ATHRUN!" Kira retorted, with equal volume and feeling, holstering rifle and sheathing sword, reaching out with the Divinity's own energy deflection armor and arresting the motion of the beam blast again, about midway between the two machines. He watched the brightly glowing violet seed, veined with gold, fall through the void in his mind, before reaching out and snatching it, determined to end this once and for all. Kira appeared in a lush meadow in his mind's eye, gently clutching the bright glowing seed in his right hand. After a few seconds, he clenched his hand into a fist and slammed it into the ground. The seed instantly took root and with a flash of light, a brightly glowing purple and gold veined tree sprung from the ground.

The impact of Kira's sprouting seed was nothing short of extraordinary; everything around the Divinity Gundam had been frozen in place. Time itself had stopped and the very fabric of the universe was now bending to Kira's will.

Meanwhile, as she lay in the Excalibur's infirmary, Lacus was going over Cagalli's memories, or more specifically the ones which led to the rape of their son, Allister.

**-FLASHBACK-**

Storming into her quarters, Cagalli threw her keys across the kitchen, causing a loud crash, as they flew through a glass cabinet door, before then flying through a few of the glass cups inside the cabinet. Seconds later, her son, Allister came in.

"Mom, why are you so mad?" Allister asked. "Mad? No, mad doesn't even come close!" She yelled. "Try thoroughly pissed, damnit, Allister, grow some fucking balls!"

"I've got some!" He yelled back.

"Oh yeah, prove it." Cagalli said, facing Allister. "Show me you've got some balls."

She then pushed Allister. "Mom?"

Cagalli grinned as she pushed him again and said. "Come on, do something!"

Allister growled as he yelled. "Damnit, Mom, quit it!" Cagalli pushed him again, but harder. "I said stop it!"

"Come on, Allister, what are you going to do?" Cagalli asked, even as she pushed him again, but this time his back slammed against a wall. Allister growled as he then pushed back, causing his mother to stumble backwards, but she didn't lose her balance.

After regaining her balance, Cagalli pushed back yet again. but she held on and pulled her son into a deep and passionate kiss. A kiss that carried out to the living room, then on to the couch, where Cagalli ripped Allister's uniform shirt off.

"M-Mom…." Allister asked in between breaths. "Wha-what are…you doing?"

Cagalli growled softly as she replied. "Just shut up...and kiss me."

**-END FLASHBACK-**

Lacus shuddered slightly, Cagalli has not only raped their son, but she had also been impregnented by him as well. The pink-haired beauty allowed a slight sigh to escape her lips. Lacus had to admit that she, like Cagalli, was attracted to Allister, but even so, she would never dream of having sex with him, much less raping him as Cagalli had done.

Everyone stared at the Divinity Gundam, as the machine's MCPS armor suddenly began to change color, from its normal white, black and red color scheme, into a non-reflective black and blood red color scheme. The chest armor which, had only seconds earlier been black, changed to blood red, while the armor covering the arms and legs which had been white, with black accents, changed to black, with blood red accents, and finally the words 'CB-X60D DIVINITY GUNDAM - APOCOLYPSE TYPE' appeared, in gold letters on the Divinity's arms, the text looking almost like a demonic tattoo.

Kira carefully scanned his surroundings for a few seconds, before then beginning to speak, utilizing the Divinity's external loudspeakers to do so. "I am ready, but one question still remains; is this universe ready for the true apocalypse?"

The Divinity Gundam then let out an ear-splitting roar, which was heard all around the world, and after the roar had died down, the machine began to extend a pair of brightly glowing orange wings. Just as the Divinity's wings began to sprout, a stabbing pain erupted in the center of Kira's back, and he was lifted into the air.

"AAAAAAAA!" He screamed in agony as something tore into his back, hurting him more than he could remember being hurt in a very long time.

"Kira, Kira! Oh my god! Athrun's got the Lance of Longinus!" Asuka Langley Soryu screamed, as she witnessed what had happened and Evangelion Unit 02 ignited its thrusters, jumped off the Excalibur's deck and streaked towards the now free-falling form of the Divinity Gundam.

For a moment, Kira thought that Athrun must have grabbed the Lance of Longinus from him during the battle, and was now using it against him. Kira quickly realized that the original lance was still sheathed at his back, and that Athrun must be using one of the pseudo-lances which were hidden within one of the millions of weapons containers that lined the Excalibur's outer hull.

"Asuka!" Misato called from within Evangelion Unit 04, as the crimson colored Evangelion Unit 02 suddenly leapt from its position on the Excalibur's foredeck and caught the motionless Divinity Gundam as it fell through the sky. Without any hesitation, Evangelion Unit 02 quickly grabbed the Divinity around the waist, carefully cradling the angel-winged machine and helping to slow its decent, before then gently setting the now motionless Gundam on the Excalibur's foredeck. Evangelion Unit 02 then turned its eyes towards the Infinite Justice Gundam.

As soon as the Divinity Gundam had been set on the foredeck, Lexi had sent out a signal telling all Celestial Being forces to fall back to the Excalibur, effectively bringing dozens of battles to a screeching halt.


	78. Forbidden Lovers

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 78**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

**Warning:** This chapter contains an extreme lemon, and is not suitable for anyone under the age of 18.

* * *

"He's regaining consciousness!" Murrue smiled in releif as Kira's amethyst eyes slowly fluttered open.

"Wh-what happened?" Kira asked, as he slowly sat up.

"You were hit by GENESIS during the last battle and passed out due to exertion." Hope and Mayu answered in unison.

Kira nodded in understanding and after a few seconds of silence, the door leading into the infirmary hissed open and Cagalli walked in, closely followed by Lacus.

"I don't care, Cagalli!" Lacus yelled, as she followed Cagalli into the infirmary. "I will not let you have a sexual relationship with our son!"

Everyone turned to stare at the two women in shock as they instantly stopped in the doorway and a deep blush crossed both of their beautiful faces.

Less than five minutes later, Cagalli and Lacus both stood in the dungeon within the Inner Sanctum. The two women were actually suspended a few feet from the floor, shackled to the ceiling by their wrists and to the floor by their ankles. In addition to being restrained, both of the women had been stripped of all of their powers, the only exceptions being their immortallity, regeneration and the ability to lengthen their hair at will, although they couldn't shorten it or control it like a limb. The two beautiful women were also wearing a thick leather collar and had a gag in their mouth.

Lacus's eyes widened when Kira emerged from a small room attached to the dungeon, wheeling a small cart in front of himself. On the cart were twelve syringes filled with the now familiar aphrodisiac known as; Pink Passion. Kira grinned as he picked up one of the syringes and walked over to his pink-haired lover.

Lacus screamed through the gag, the noise a combination of intense pleasure and equally intense pain, as Kira thrust the syringe deep into his lover's dripping womanhood. The needle effortlessly pierced Lacus's clitoris, the pain causing tears to slip from the corners of her beautiful blue eyes. Kira smiled almost sadistically as he slowly pushed the plunger down, injecting the highly potent, pink-violet aphrodisiac directly into his lover's swollen clitoris. Lacus moaned loudly through the gag as the powerful aphrodisiac immediately began to take effect while also serving to further heighten the pleasure caused by the drug that was already flowing throughout her body. The blue-eyed beauty could only whimper in response, even as Kira walked back over to the collection of toys and picked up a pair of syringes before then returning to Lacus.

"Just stay calm, Lacus." Kira sweetly cooed as he raised the two needles to the pink-haired beauty's temples, piercing both of the large veins, slowly injecting even more of the powerful aphrodisiac into his lover's body. As the bright pink liquid began to slowly flow into Lacus's blood stream, Kira began to utilize some of his more divine abilities, actually controlling the flow of the powerful drug, making it collect in his lover's hair follicles.

Kira simply smiled a moment later, as he set both syringes down, picked up a hairbrush and began to gently brush Lacus's silky pink locks. Lacus's blue eyes widened and she moaned loudly through the gag as the bristles of the brush ran smoothly through her soft tresses. Kira continued to brush his lover's hair, well aware that he had brought the pink-haired beauty to an orgasm with the first stroke of the hairbrush. After thoroughly brushing every single strand of his lover's hair, Kira set the brush down, and once more picked up a pair of syringes, injecting these two directly into his lover's erect nipples, causng Lacus to scream into the gag with a mix of pan and pleasure. Kira then repeated the process, injecting Lacus with the remaining Pink Passion, one syringe in her clit, two syringes in her temples, with the drug itself quickly flowing into her silky pink hair, and the final two syringes in her breasts.

Kira smiled slightly as the door suddenly hissed open and Allister walked into the dungeon, accompinied by Hope, Murrue and Mayu.

"Uncle Kira., why are my parents restrained like that?" Allister asked, nodding towards Cagalli and Lacus.

"Your parents are restrained like that because if they weren't, you would probably be pinned to the floor as they tore the clothes from your body." Kira paused for a moment, but then he dropped the mental shields which he had placed around the two restrained beauties. Instantly, Allister's mind was assaulted by the drug-induced desires of his parents.

Cagalli was imagining herself leaping at Allister, ripping her own uniform off as she flew through the air, before pinning him to the floor, and then proceeding to tear the uniform from his body, before finally impaling herself on his manhood.

While Cagalli was dreaming of simply allowing the potent aphrodisiac to guide her actions, Lacus was imagining herself taking her handsome son with at least some degee of self-control. The pink-haired beauty was dreaming of slowly and seductively strippping herself before then undressing Allister, taking time to plant calming and reassuring kisses all over his face as she removed the uniform from his body.

Allister's eyes widened as Kira replaced the mental shields, once again blocking the desires of his parents from reaching his mind. As the mental visions slowly faded Allister realized that he had become aroused by the desires he had just witinessed.

"Now do you understand why your parents have been gagged and restrained like that, Allister?" Kira asked, causing his nephew to nod. A few seconds passed before Kira continued speaking. "Allister, I know that you have managed to, on multiple ocasssions, hack into the Inner Sanctum's exclusive computer network and have already viewed some of the videos which Cagalli and Lacus have made over the years." Allister deeply blushed and looked away, but Kira simply smiled as he continued. "I'm not mad at you, actually, I want to give you the opportunity to learn how adults have sex, using Cagalli and Lacus as your partners."

Allister's golden eyes widened in surprise, but he could already tell that his uncle was completely serious. After a moment of hesitation, he began to step towards Cagalli, he wasn't about to tell anyone, but he actually wanted revenge on her for attempting to rape him nearly a week ago. Allister never got to Cagalli, however, as the grate covering one of the overhead air ducts suddenly fell to the floor, closely followed by Kira's own daughter; Aoi.

Aoi landed on her feet with the grace of a cat, barely making a sound as her feet touched the floor and her silky brunette tresses silently settled at her waist. Her sudden appearance stunned everyone into silence for a moment. The silence didn't last long however, as Kira was quickly approaching his daughter.

The amethyst-eyed man stopped a few feet from his daughter, simply glaring at her before finally speaking, his voice was calm, but the tone made it clear that he was upset. "Aoi, I thought I told you that this area of the Excalibur was off-limits to you and your brother."

"Why is it off-limits to Akira and myself, while Allister seems to have full access?" Aoi immediately retorted, narrowing her marigold eyes at her friend, and the boy whom she hoped would eventually become her husband.

Suddenly a blinding flash filled the room, forcing both Aoi and Allister to shield their eyes. When the light faded Cagalli, Hope, Lacus, Mayu and Murrue were gone, the five women replaced by a single woman of nearly unimiganible beauty; Yumi.

"Kira." Yumi smiled. "If Allister and Aoi want to enter a relationship, who are we to stop them?"

"Aoi is only twelve!" Kira exclaimed.

"Aoi and Allister have both gone though puberty already." Yumi smiled. "Why would you want to stop your daughter from finding happiness?"

"I don't want to stop my daughter from finding happiness." Kira sighed. "But she is only twelve years old, and has eternity to find as many lovers as she could possibly want."

"You and I are over 2,000 years old, Kira." Yumi grinned.

"And during those 2,000 years, the six of us have only created three offspring." Kira replied, both of the adults having forgotten about the two children in their midst. Not only had Kira and Yumi completely forgotten about Allister and Aoi, they also hadn't noticed that the two children were ever so slowly beginning to undress each other, although they had only removed each other's uniform jackets, revealing the underlying shirts.


	79. The Siege of Excalibur

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 79**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

"We shal...oh my God..." One of the German soldiers broke off into a whisper, as, from out of nowhere, the Divinity Gundam, the angelic machine now brightly glowing with a blood red light, suddenly burst into the midst of the German formations like a hungry eagle amongst a flock of canaries, the sonic booms of its hypersonic arrival parting the ranks of the German troops like a pair of invisible hands hurling them aside, the mobile suits tumbling head over heels as the pilots struggled to regain their balance before plunging to the ground, six of them not so fortunate, having been sliced apart or gashed into pieces by the Divinity's QC anti-ship sword before they even realized they were under attack.

"HOLY MOTHERFUCKING CHRIST!" Shinn shouted, as the angel-winged Gundam cannoned into the German ranks, scattering them like a tank shell would scatter bowling pins. The Eclipse was buffeted by the sonic wash of the Divinity's sudden approach, but Shinn managed to keep his balance and poise, thanking the long hours of training over the past few years for that. The communications channels broke out into surprised yells and screams and questions being shouted back and forth as the German soldiers fought to retain cohesion in the face of the unexpected attack, but it was difficult to be composed when a rabid dog had its jaws ripping at your belly, and the Divinity was no less distracting or violent, everywhere it went, mobile suits exploded or fell earthward with huge gashes torn through them, or else sliced completely in half. Everyone was too bunched up to fight back effectively against such a machine. "Shoot him, Luna!" Shinn directed frantically.

"I can't get a clear shot!" Luna shouted back, equally frantically. "He's moving so damn fast..." She complained to herself. She'd been training against Shinn and other top end soldiers for years and years now, and she thought she had a handle on the way that the Divinity Gundam could move, but now, Kira was making everyone else she'd ever trained with look like they were moving in slow motion. How he could possibly attack in a coherent manner at such speed was incomprehensible to her.

"Large mobile armor approaching!" Lexi suddenly called out, her voice a combination of surprise and panic. "What the fucking hell is that thing?" The mobile armor which was now approaching the battlefield appeared to be a no more than a massively scaled-up version of the ZAFT-built Savior Gundam, although with a black and red color scheme in place of the original Savior Gundam's crimson color scheme.

"So all they can do is copy the designs of our machines?" Kira rhetorically asked, glaring at the rapidly approaching mobile armor. "That's sad, especially since we have copyrights on all of our mobile suit and mobile armor designs." The amethyst-eyed man paused for moment before continuing. "Lexi, access all of the world's electronic bank accounts and transfer all of the money into our own account. Please be sure not to leave any evidence behind which could be used to track us."

"Understood." Lexi replied, pausing for a few seconds as she quickly carried out Kira's orders. "Commencing transfer now."

Meanwhile, the Divinity Gundam had switched targets, the angelic machine was now in its flight mode, screaming towards the still approaching mobile armor, which suddenly banked towards the Minerva and was now moving to attack the grey and red warship. The Divinity Gundam didn't arrive soon enough however, as the huge mobile armor ignited a pair of beam blades on the leading edges of its wings and effortlessly slashed through the Minerva, slicing the winged warship in half length-wise with a single pass.

"No..." Kira whispered, his lips feeling parched and his tongue tasting of burnt meat, as he dropped his shields and welcomed the tide of frantic emotion into himself, letting it wash away his numbness and replace it with more useful emotions. Rage. Determination. Sorrow. Hate. All those negative emotions that Hope had once exposed as the essential natures of humanity. Kira still did not agree with that assessment, regardless of his current situation he knew there was as much light and lovely about humanity as there was dark and ugly, but he did have to admit, the darker emotions made a fine turbocharging fuel when love and kindness couldn't reach him! "No more..." Kira repeated, hauling the Divinity back up to a standing position. "No more of this...I WILL NOT ALLOW THIS ANY LONGER!" He screamed the last, across channels both technological and psychic, and all who heard the rawness in his voice shivered for a moment, many in fear, some in anticipation.

Kira watched his seed, violet in color with crawling rooting veins of purest gold, float towards the termination plane in the fastness of his mind, a void that slowly reformed into a vista of a forest, mighty trees towering on all sides, the soil thick and loamy beneath his bare toes. He watched with narrow eyes as the seed descended from the heavens, his arms tensed as he waited for it to fall within reach. And then he snatched for it, the seed smacking into his palm like it was meant to be there. Kira tightened his fist around his seed, feeling the texture of it as the veins began to writhe and venture outwards, sinking into the flesh of his palm and fingers, rooting itself in him. Alternating waves of fire and ice seemed to shoot through his veins, his limbs trembling with pent up energy as he carefully knelt down, the seed clenched in a fist held high...and then that fist was slammed downwards, punching deep into the soil, cracking the forest plane open as the seed gestated and became a gigantic tree, a tree that enveloped Kira and lifted him up, higher and higher, absorbing him into its essence until he was cradled inside it like a baby in a womb.

Back in reality, Kira's eyes opened, once more shaded a metallic color, though they were more gold than violet now, his pupils expanding until his corneas were but a thin rim of violet around the gold, like the glowing corona of a sun during a total eclipse.

With all of his senses operating well past their peak efficiency, Kira could already see that waiting for the Alliance forces to begin their attack would only place himself and his forces at a disadvantage. It was time to strike while the iron was still hot. Without any hesitation, Kira holstered both of his beam rifles and ignited his thrusters.

"All Celestial Being forces, follow my lead!" Kira directed, infusing the soldiers with such a degree of confidence and authority that even if he were to charge headlong into the mouth of Hell, he felt fairly sure they would follow him. And in truth, the situation was pretty close to that, as Kira accelerated the Divinity to near its maximum speed, crossing the space between him and the Alliance forces in a fraction of a second, moving so fast not even he could attack in real time. Fortunately he had no need to, with his more divine powers so souped up, he could see where his opponents would be when he did arrive, and he could thus start his attacks without having to react or rely on his slothful physical senses...he shot at empty space, knowing it would be filled by the time the shot arrived.

The Divinity punched into the mustering Alliance forces like a barbed spear thrust into a block of ballistic jelly, not only penetrating with ease, but dragging pieces of machines which had been destroyed earlier by his beam wings, into the wound alongside himself, even as he lifted armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles and main battle tanks with the Gravametric Manipulation Field Generators, hurling the vehicles around like skittles, dropping them onto others of their kind, or throwing them into the sides of larger vehicles, like the Archangel and Petrie class battleships.

Even as the vehicles impacted with the hulls of the the Archangel and Petrie class battleships, multiple explosions rocking the vessels, a pair of GN sword/rifles launched from one of the Excalibur's few catapults which was dedicated solely to launching weapons to allied forces. The Divinity Gundam's eyes flashed with a bright amethyst light as Kira rolled around both weapons, plucking them out of the air and opening fire on any enemy units nearby.

"All Earth Alliance forces are ordered to pull back!" The familiar voice of Natarle Badgiruel suddenly boomed through the communications lines, and immediately the Alliance mobile suits began to retreat, their weapons spewing cover fire as they sped away. Unknown to anyone, the ZAFT Minerva-class warship Fortune, had been hiding in a nearby debris field, the gold winged warship cloaked beneath its Mirage Colloid as it silently monitored the battle.

"You know." Athrun Zala sighed as he sat in the cockpit of the Infinite Justice Gundam, as the machine sat in the hanger of the ZAFT Minerva-class warship Fortune, and Faith Yamato glanced down at him with her piercing amethyst eyes as she sat on the Infinite Justice's chest by its cockpit hatch. "He used to be my friend."

"You mean the guy piloting that angel-winged mobile suit?" She asked, moving a lock of her waist-length blonde hair from her eyes.

"Yeah, him." Athrun stared forward with a hurricane of emotion churning within. "He was the guy who commandeered the Strike Gundam and used it on Heliopolis six years ago. We were best friends."

Faith studied his haggard face for a moment. "Were?"

"He killed his sister, Cagalli Yula Athha and his own fiancée, Lacus Clyne." Athrun said with a resigned wave of his hand. "We're not friends anymore."

"Then what happened to him?"

At that, Athrun cast a hateful glance across the hangar at the Legend Gundam. "You asked me once why I have a problem with Rau." He said. "That's why. Rau was the one who drove us apart and turned Kira into the monster he is today." He floundered for words for a moment. "Whatever the hell he is now. I don't even recognize him anymore."

Faith glanced skeptically at Athrun. "How did he do that?"

"I don't know. I guess he blamed me for killing someone important to him, or something." He shook his head. "My best friend would not have ordered an attack on civilian vessels or any of the other stuff that he is doing now. And I have Rau to thank for that."

"Athrun-" Faith started.

"But he won't get to pull off whatever it is he's planning now." Athrun went on. "Not while I'm here."

_'We'll see about that, Athurn Zala.'_ Faith thought to herself as she pushed off of the Infinite Justice's chest, floating over to her own Destiny Gundam.

Faith looked up at the Destiny Gundam as it silently sat in the hanger. She was working undercover for Celestial Being, and as such, she had used her powers to change her eye color from gold to amethyst and to shorten her silky blonde tresses, much to her annoyance, so that they only reached down to her waist.

Along with the changes in Faith's own appearance, her Destiny Gundam had been reprogrammed so that its MCPS armor would now appear to power down, changing the machine's armor to a dull grey color scheme when it wasn't in combat. In truth, however, the Destiny never needed to power down since all the machine's energy was supplied by a pair of GN drives, a zero-point module, an ultra-compact hyper deuteron nuclear reactor and a trio of high-capacity energy batteries. The Destiny's zero-point module, twin GN drives and ultra-compact hyper deuteron nuclear reactor provided, in essence, unlimited energy with the added benefit of keeping the auxiliary energy batteries charged, should they be needed.

It was not victory.

Kira Yamato sat in his office, deep within the Excalibur, clenching and unclenching his fists. In front of his desk, Hope watched him with a nervous expression. "We'll have other chances to destroy the Fortune, sir." She spoke up. "Meyrin said that their projected course will take them to L1. We could follow them-"

"No." Kira said suddenly. "We have a schedule."

"Will we proceed to the Aprilius One colony, then?" Hope asked.

Kira nodded painfully. "Send the order up to the bridge. Proceed to L4, target the Aprilius One space colony, and charge the Excalibur's weapons. Like most of the colonies, it's an Island Three type, and can be destroyed by punching through the mirror and breaking apart the central axis. We probably won't even need to launch the mobile suits."

Hope saluted and excused herself, leaving Kira alone in his office, seething with anger.

A few minutes later, multiple alarms began to sound, only for them the go completely silent as the lights flickered for a few tense seconds before finally going out completely, only to be replaced by the Excalibur's emergency lighting, which lit up the interior of the ship with a blood red glow.

Kira snarled as he rose from his chair, slowly moving to the door, bringing all of the Divinity's weapons online as he did so. When he reached the door, he put his ear against it and listened intently, but he couldn't hear anything. Finally, after ten seconds, he engaged the manual override and hit the access button, causing the door to slide open and reveal the corridor, which like his office was bathed in blood red light.

After a few moments, Kira reached the main hanger. The place looked like it had seen better days. There were a number of corpses spread out across the area, pools of blood were splashed across the ground and the walls. There were vehicles and aircraft within the hanger, but most of them looked as though they had been trashed beyond reason.

But there were no survivors, no one to tell the bloody tale first hand. Kira moved silently forward, weapons at the ready. He was nervous, he felt like he was being watched, but there was no one around that he could see. Something was wrong, with everything around him. He could almost feel a palpable sense of dread and ominous foreboding in the air, thick and heavy and overwhelming. He tried to keep calm, but the bodies strewn around the hanger spoke of a terrible fate. There were bullet holes in their pale flesh, ripping jagged, bloody rents in their clothing and armor. Bullet indentations lined the walls, screens either flickered on and off or were chaotic static or were just blank black, like a void.

Kira paused briefly, he thought he'd heard something...but maybe it was just his imagination. This place was certainly playing tricks on it.

"God almighty..." Kira whispered to himself, studying one of the bodies. "What in the hell happened here?"

The amethyst-eyed man carefully progressed on through the hangar, looking over the dead bodies in search of survivors or maybe just a familiar face. He kept looking around, trying to ascertain any details from his environment that could help him solve the cryptic scenario that had been placed before him, but a lot of it didn't make any sense. Why exactly was everyone so dead and what killed them besides each other? Sure, the bullet holes made sense, in their own sort of way. But there were other things, like claw marks or burn marks, and it looked as if something large and nasty had been eating a few of the bodies. They reached the doorway at the end of the hangar, it was marked 'Garage'. Kira hit the access button and looked inside.

He found himself staring into a dimly lit room of medium size, littered with crates and parts and blood and bodies. Most of the vehicles were broken down, a few looked as if they had actually been taken apart, but the rest them seemed like they had just been torn asunder with sheer, brute force.

Kira carefully moved forward, weapons at the ready, but nothing presented itself as a target. Kira's head snapped around as he heard something coming from around one of the wrecks of a vehicle and he stalked silently forward. It sounded like heavy breath and snapping and chewing, as if something was eating furiously. Kira swallowed, his eyes wide, wondering what he was going to find.

He rounded the vehicle, crouched down in absolute silence, plasma cannons swinging forward, and that's when he spotted the creature. The creature, in this case, was a technician in a tattered, bloodied blue jumpsuit, knelt down over a corpse facing away from the trio. Already, Kira could tell what he was doing. The man was eating the corpse.

"Identify yourself." Kira stated, just for something to say, to get his attention. The tech paused at the sound of his voice, and slowly rose to his feet. He turned around quietly, almost as if he was taking his time, and then Kira saw. He saw it all. The man's face had an almost demonic quality to it, pale and no doubt cold as stone to the touch, his eyes were blank and emotionless. There were no pupils, just small expanses of blank yellow. He moaned eerily and began stumbling forward, hands outstretched and dripping fresh blood and gore.

Kira instantly fired a pair of searing blue-red blasts from his plasma cannons, the twin blasts vaporizing the creature. As the dual plasma blasts slowly faded, Kira noticed a hellish light, like fire, coming from behind the grate of an overhead air vent at the top of the far wall. The amethyst-eyed man looked up just as the grate exploded off its mount and out came a skull that was on fire and flying.

More of the things began pouring into the room, hissing and shrieking like demons. Kira raised his beam rifle and fired, the beam blast nailing one of the things that was coming straight for him. The skull simply blew up in a mix of bone fragments and blood, which was disturbing in and of itself.

A dozen or so of the creatures had quickly come into the room, and Kira was now firing his weapons, one after another, in rapid sucession. He blasted another one out of the air, and then suddenly the breath was knocked from him as one of the skulls slammed directly into his chest with an alarming amount of force. He slammed into a computer console and cursed loudly, before vaporizing the thing with a pair of point-blank blasts from his twin chest-mounted multi-phase cannons. With a slight sigh, he then proceded across the hanger, shaking his head in anger and slight regret as he passed his beloved X-02A Wyvern, which despite its MCPS armor, had somehow been bashed and beaten, with multiple dents now covereing the once pristene exterior of the superfighter.

After exiting the hanger, the amethyst-eyed man proceeded towards the genetics labs. Immediately upon entering the genetics labs, he found himself immersed in chaos. A few dozen zombies were indulging themselves happily in a very large meal of the scientists and staff of genetics labs. Kira reacted instantly, bringing the barrels both beam rifles up to bear. He opened fire, vaporizing the head of the nearest zombie with a single green energy blast. This, of course, was an open invitation to all the other drooling undead, who slowly rose to their feet and turned towards the newcomer. About half of them wielded weapons of some sort; from wrenches and hammers, to pistols and shotguns. Kira aimed for the most immediate of threats, his rail guns swinging up and pumping round after round into the monstrosities.

Holstering the two beam rifles, Kira seized both of his twin buster rifles and opened up, squeezing the triggers and waving the guns back and forth in wide, sweeping arcs so that it caught everything in the room in a column of destructive yellow energy. A bullet would fly past him every now and then, and a few of them actually hit him. One nailed him in the chest, only to ricochet harmlessly off his MCPS armor before striking another of the undead. Countless bodies were being reduced to vapor, even as blood and brains and bone were boiling away due to the unimaginable heat from the huge beam blasts.

As Kira lowered slowly the rifles, his communications line suddenly crackled to life. "This is Murrue Ramius, is anyone still alive? Please respond!"

"This is Kira Yamato." The amethyst-eyed man replied, his now voice lacking emotion.

"Kira!" Murrue's voice swelled with relief. "Where are you?"

"I'm in the genetics labs." He answered.

"Don't move, I'll be there in a few minutes." She quickly replied and after a few seconds of silence she added. "That's an order."


	80. Unexpected Abilities

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 80**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

"What the hell is going on here?" Kira asked, as he and Murrue quickly proceeded through the Excalibur's genetics labs a few minutes later.

"I honestly have no idea, Kira." Murrue answered, as the door in front of them hissed open and the lights suddenly blazed to life.

Standing at the opposite end of the huge room were two of the biggest monsters that Kira had seen thus far. They were huge, a good ten feet tall standing up straight. They were pink and brown colored in nature, and roughly humanoid. Their legs were goat-like, but their torsos were definitely human. They looked to be carved out of stone with solid, thick slabs of muscle. Their fingers ended in massive claws and their eyes glowed with an inner, bright red hellish light. A pair of ram horns curled out of either side of their craniums and their faces were twisted mockeries of humanity. They let loose, both at once, roars beyond anything Kira had ever heard. The entire room seemed to shake as they bellowed, Kira and Murrue both froze.

The two monsters, which Kira had mentally dubbed as Barons of Hell, touched something deep down, some sort of primal instinct or fear at the very base of humanity. All they wanted to do was run, to just turn and run away, and it was only their countless years in the military that prevented them from actually doing so. They both held their ground, and after a few short seconds, the monsters attacked. Faster than the human eye could follow, the creature on the left hauled off and threw a great big ball of green colored fire. As Kira raised his right arm to block the attack with his physical shield, his vision was suddenly blocked by a huge mass of writhing brunette tresses.

"What the hell are you doing, Murrue?" Kira yelled, even as his lover's silky locks effortlessly blocked the searing green fireball. Murrue simply smirked as her beautiful hair, which was now in excess of fifty miles long, parted in front of Kira, once more clearing his field of vision. The amethyst-eyed man could only watch in awe as his lover's brunette strands quickly took the form of a massive brown serpent with brightly glowing marigold eyes, pink-tipped horns on either side of its head and a gaping mouth filled with pure white, razor sharp teeth.

The serpent let out an ear-splitting roar, louder even than the bellows which the two barons of hell had unleashed a few seconds earlier. The two barons, now effectively distracted, began to hurl green fireballs at the massive serpent, only for the glowing projectiles to impact harmlessly on the creature's thick skin. The serpent let out an aggrivated hiss as the green fireballs continued to uselessly pelt its skin. After ten long seconds, the serpent finally lashed out, opening its gaping maw, taking the closest baron into its mouth, the razor-sharp teeth effortlessly slicing the huge beast in half at the waist. Torrents of thick red blood gushed from the obviously fatal wound, soaking the seprent a deep crimson, even as it lunged at the remaining baron and dispached it in a similar fashion.

Kira's mouth had long since fallen open in awe, and it remained that way as Murrue's silky tresses once again receded to their normal length, stopping just above her ankles. The marigold-eyed woman allowed a slight sigh to escape her lips as she realized that her silky strands were now soaked with thick red blood.

They continued on through the flickering passageways and the dank, death-ridden maintenance rooms until finally the pair came to a secondary entrance into the main chamber. Kira stopped and stared as he entered. The size of the chamber was massive compared to every other room he had been in so far. The place easily stretched out a hundred meters in length and fifty in width, it had to be a good thirty meters tall. Across the chamber were two massive pillars that went from floor to ceiling, comprised of what looked like pure technology. They gleaned under the high, powerful lights that still somehow remained operable. Various work stations were spread out across the area, one of them on a massive raised platform.

This was the heart of the Excalibur's hyper deuteron nuclear power plant, one of the massive ship's half dozen power sources. The two began to walk into the chamber, feeling small against its wide breadth and width. After a few short seconds, the assault began. A pair of demons came stomping from around the central raised columns and charged for the two humans. As one, they immediately raised their beam rifles and sprayed searing enery blasts. The green energy bolts stitched a bloody line of tiny explosions along the thick, pink flesh and the creatures roared in anger and pain. They managed to drop one about three meters away, but the second one was tough. As the two guns ran out of power, the beast had yet to fall.

"Fuck this!" Kira scowled, reaching out with both hands and grabbing the creature. The amethyst-eyed man smirked as he effortlessly lifted the huge creature off the ground before throwing it into a wall, the impact leaving a huge dent in the thick metal. "Divinity finger!" The amethyst-eyed man roared, igniting his wings of light and streaking towards the slowly rising creature, his left hand now glowing with a blood red light. The demon could only scream in pain as Kira's glowing hand slammed into it, the searing heat quickly burning through the creature's tough hide, before the palm beam cannon finally fired, vaporizing the brain and killing the creature.

"Showoff." Murrue muttered as Kira just stood there, smiling. Of course he had finished off his weapon, and of course this sound drew the attention of any other beasts nearby. From another doorway in the far left corner of the chamber a pair of demons and a trio of imps came stomping in, snapping at each other. He unholstered his pair of beam rifles, then opened fire. One of the demons dropped underneath the barrage of fire, as did one of the imps. The other two fireball throwers began to toss their hellfires, unfortunately in their franticness, they pegged the surviving demon from behind.

The demon forgot all about the two human platters, spun around and began to chow down on one of the imps. The second one shrieked as its brethren was eaten alive and began hurling its own flaming arsenal at the big, burly beast. Kira quickly called for Murrue to hold fire. This was better than pay-per-view. The demon finished off the first imp, eating the thing's whole torso, arms, head and all, leaving a pair of still kicking legs. It was wobbling painfully it approached the second imp, which continually hurled fireballs at it. The demon managed to get a large swipe off, cutting clear, painful looking marks across the imp's chest before it finally collapsed into a big, pink heap.

As soon as they had moved into the next corridor, something smacked lightly against Kira's visor and he blinked, batting instinctively ahead of him. Realizing it wasn't an attack, he focused and saw that it was a fleck of blood.

"What the hell...?" He whispered. A second one appeared, this time it was larger, a full drop. It began to make a slow, crimson trailer down his visor. A third drop fell, then a fourth.

"It's raining." Kira commented.

"Blood." Murrue concluded finally. All around them, in a light rain, droplets of blood began plummeting earthwards.

"Christ...what next?" Kira muttered, he wished he hadn't as they came into yet another corridor, this one was longer than it was wide. A rectangle of visceral content stretched out before them, and as if to answer Kira's previous question, he and Murrue came into another opening, this one being was longer than it was wide. They had found the remains of the research team. Placed on metal spikes in rows along both lengthy walls were about a dozen humans each, all of them contained within, either the green of a soldier's uniform or the white of a researcher's attire. The spikes punctured through their chests and stomachs, blood leaked thickly down, having pulsated from their gaping wounds. Sometimes there were multiple spikes, punching through their arms, hands and more often than not, heads. Pain was etched into their stony, unmoving faces, an eternity of pain. Some of them still twitched.

"God almighty..." Murrue whispered, staring at the two rows of death. Blood drops kept falling on their heads. Kira slowly walked forward to one of them that was still moving ever so slightly. It was a soldier, but the nametag was missing. His helmet was also missing, he wore a crimson high-and-tight haircut and his eyes were closed; he was clearly unconscious. He was impaled three times through the chest. Kira sighed as he placed the cold barrel of his beam rifle to the man's head and squeezed the trigger once. The body jerked convulsively and was still, almost as if relieved. Silently, emotionlessly, he and Murrue did the same for any other survivors they found. They could barely be called survivors, trapped and tortured, there was no way to save them. When the dirty deed was done, an homage to the dead, they left, heading towards the holodecks.

Less then five minutes later, as Kira and Murrue progressed down the corridor, they found Cagalli, Lacus, Allister and Aoi. The two women were fiercely protecting their son and daughter-in-law from a horde of the undead. Kira silently stepped forward, vaporizing the crowd of zombies with a pair of blue-red plasma cannon blasts. After a few more minutes, they stumbled upon Hope, Mayu and Akira, the two women effortlessly and viciously slicing a pair of the undead crew into multiple pieces with their beam sabers, as their nephew took what shots he could with the scaled down beam rifle which he now wielded. At first, Hope didn't seem to recognize the group, but Mayu put a reassuring hand on her lover's shoulder, causing her to relax slightly.

Out of the nine of them, Cagalli, Hope, Kira, Lacus and Mayu were merged with their Gundams, Murrue wielded a riot shield in her left hand and a scaled down twin buster rifle in her right hand, while Allister, Aoi and Akira, each wielded a scaled down beam rifle in their right hand and riot shield in the left.

Kira's eyes widened as the group of nine stepped into the still active holodeck ten minutes later. Odd rock constructs, like bizarre, twisted statues, lined the area. They could both hear a stomping nearby, shaking the ground and rattling their bones. Kira and Murrue both looked around, and then they saw the creature. It was huge, at least as tall as a mobile suit. It was a horrible abomination unto existence. Its skin, if that's what it could be called, was blood red. Its feet were giant, cloven hooves, much like the barons of hell. One was black and one gleaned silver. Half of its right leg was nothing but metal, an almost glowing steel silver.

Most of the skin covering its stomach was missing. Bright, bloodied strands of meat and muscle showed through. Its torso was nothing but thick slabs of solid muscle. It looked like it could lift the Earth itself. The right arm was fairly normal...as far as normal went recently, save for a few wires sticking out of the elbow. But the left arm ended in a giant box that looked like it probably fired disturbingly large projectiles. Its face was a visage of pure terror, a menacing sneer of all gleaming, razor sharp steel teeth and two blood red eyes the size of dinner plates. Two huge, curving horns grew out of the sides of its skull, winding back over its forehead.

"OPEN FIRE!" Kira screamed at the top of his lungs. As if to punctuate this command, he unleashed a full-burst from his weapons. The massive beast stood there as the pair of rail guns shells and four searing beam blasts, streaked towards it, and they all impacted harmlessly across its great chest. The beast roared mightily, reared its head back, raised its arm and fired, the group ran. Kira could only think of one thing at the moment, and that was a proper name for the beast; Cyberdemon. It was the only thing he could put to it. A single missile, which was the size of a 2001 Volkswagen Beetle RSi, exploded out of the box on the end of its arm and went wide, exploding along the far wall of the area that they were in. Walls of thick metal surrounded them on all sides.

Everyone scattered, trying to fire upon the beast. Rail gun shells and various beam blasts washed across the area and smashed across rock walls and sometimes the beast. Kira blasted out with a pair of high explosive rail gun shells and watched them explode into the thing's stomach, the twin explosions seemed to pale in comparison to the size of the Cyberdemon. The beast redirected its mighty arm towards the three smaller, weaker humans and sent a trio of rockets flying, ignoring the incoming rail gun shells and beam blasts as if they were annoying flies. The three huge rockets came in far too fast. It seemed that Allister, Akira and Aoi had absolutely no chance of survival.

"Oh no you don't, you stupid fucker!" The five women shouted in unison, each of them lengthening their beautiful hair to more than one-hundred miles and surrounding the three children with a thick, protective sphere of writhing blonde, pink and brunette tresses. The trio of rockets impacted the thick, silken barrier and detonated harmlessly. The Cyberdemon roared in anger as it was denied its kill.

"Aww, did you not get to kill anything?" Kira sarcastically taunted the raging beast. "Cry more, faggot." He snarled, opening up with another full-burst, before grabbing the beam saber on his left hip, freeing the weapon and slamming the handle into that of the beam saber on his right hip before finally freeing and igniting the now double bladed weapon. "So, you want to lob Volkswagen Beetles at my family?" The amethyst-eyed man growled, even as he utilized his more divine abilites, spawning a dozen 2005 Ford Excursions, the twelve vehicles positioned around the massive Cyberdemon in a circle. "Then I'll hurl Ford Excursions at you!"

The twelve Ford Excursions were fully fueled and filled with high explosives. As the dozen full-size sport utility vehicles sat around the now stunned Cyberdemon, their 7.3 liter V-8 diesel engines rumbled to life and began idling, even as their high-beam head lights, tail lights and hazard lights illuminated themselves. The Cyberdemon roared at the idling vehicles, as if trying to frighten them into submission. In response, the dozen sport utility vehicles revved their engines, roaring back at the creature.

Kira grinned sadistically as he thrust both hands forward, all twelve of the massive vehicles shooting forward in perfect unison, going from a complete stop to nearly two-hundred miles per hour, in less time it took to blink an eye. An instant later, the Cyberdemon vanished within a single, massive orange-red explosion which sent plastic, aluminium and steel shrapnel in every direction. Just before the cloud of shrapnel hit the group, a wall of silky brunette tresses with pink and blonde highlights, sprang up, the beautiful hair effortlessly blocking the flying debris.

Kira glanced over his shoulder and smiled at Yumi. As soon as the twelve vehicles had impacted the huge beast, Kira's five lovers had merged to once more form Yumi, and in doing so, they had also un-merged with their Gundams, which were now back in the hanger bay.

Yumi was far from unarmed though, as she wielded a scaled down twin buster rifle in her right hand, a beam rifle in her left hand, with a riot shield securely strapped to her left forearm, not to mention her silken tresses. Yumi's beautiful hair now rested at her ankles, and was completely capable of instantly extending to any length, allowing the silken strands to function as incredibly effective weapons or shields.


	81. Cleansing

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 81**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

Kira and Yumi had been quick to send their children to the mobile suit hanger, with very simple instructions; take control of one of the Gundams, launch from the hanger and defend the Excalibur from any external invasion or attack. This was due in part to the fact that they didn't know whether the invasion was coming from inside or outside the Excalibur.

The walls were sparsely sprinkled with doors, some broken open, some locked. Kira poked into all those he passed that weren't locked. They were mostly equipment bays: areas meant to contain data storage and the technology meant to make solar system spanning, or in some cases, galaxy spanning communications equipment. There was more blood on the walls, splattered liberally here, there and everywhere, but no more zombies or demons so far.

Kira reached a T-junction in the corridor and broke left, remembering the general direction of his location. He froze up as he heard an all too familiar groan. Something lurked ahead of him in the corridor, its back to him. He stared at it for a few seconds, hesitating to squeeze the trigger. From the back, the guy looked pretty mangled. His clothing at least. He'd been a technician, clad in a generic blue, torn jumpsuit.

While the cloth was torn and stained with blood, the flesh beneath looked solid, even if it was way too pale and a little decayed. The zombie held a pistol and released another generic groan. Why did they groan? Kira decided that he was better off not knowing that one, raised his beam rifle and squeezed the trigger.

The zombie went to its knees like in a movie or something as its head blew apart as if it had a grenade in it. Freshly coagulated blood splattered thickly across the dead walls. The corpse finished collapsing forward to the ground. Kira grinned and kept an ear open for anything else that might be around. Nothing came running or screaming as he knelt and retrieved the pistol from the zombie's hand, as well as a pair of clips from its belt.

He got up, pressing deeper into the communications center.

"I made contact. A single zombie." Kira said.

"Really? Funny. I just blasted a pair of imps." Yumi replied with a hint of grim satisfaction. She would probably never admit it, but she missed killing the undead just as much as he did. Kira chuckled.

"Yep. Let's do what we do best." He replied.

"Roger that." She punctuated her sentence with another shotgun blast, followed by a loud roar of pain. Kira turned another corner, coming into a somewhat broader corridor where he found himself facing another trio of zombies. These guys were soldiers and were all holding sub-machine guns. And they weren't facing away from him this time. Kira raised his beam shotgun and fired true, blasting the center zombie off its feet with a chest shot that ripped its ribcage to shreds. The others roared their replies and raised their weapons.

Kira fell back around the corner and cocked the gun as the gunfire plinked around where he had been. When it ceased, he popped back around and fired. Another head exploded in a shower of blood. Gathering initiative, Kira swiveled the left-side plasma cannon, zeroing the sights on the final abomination and pounded out another blast, as well as another gallon of blood. The final zombie fell and all was silent once more. Wary but motivated, Kira continued forward and knelt at the corpses. He frisked the zombies, hunting for anything useful, and took one of their sub machine guns.

"Kira." Kira jumped slightly at the sudden voice in his head.

"Yeah?" He replied, keeping an eye out for survivors or wanderers.

"I just ran into a pair of those hellknights you were talking about earlier." Yumi said.

"So, by your report...I imagine you survived the attack."

"No, I'm being held down by the pair of demonic things."

"Hmm, speaking of a pair of things...I don't suppose you've reconsidered that threesome thing?" Kira chuckled, finishing his sweep of the battlefield and plunging deeper into the Excalibur's storage area.

"I told you, Kira, don't really feel like that." Yumi replied.

"Yeah...how about if it was girl on girl and I just watched?" Kira suggested.

"Hmm...she'd have to be hot."

"Well, yeah."

"Ha. You find me a hot, skinny redhead that will go down on me, and you've got yourself a deal."

"Fun, fun. I'll get right on it when-shit!" Kira narrowly leapt back to avoid a huge jaw full of equally huge teeth.

"Kira, are you okay?" Yumi's voice sounded distant as Kira took another step back and fell on his ass. He brought the shotgun up and pounded out a blast. Blood flew, but the beast kept coming. He pounded out another blast, all the while trying to dig in his heels and push his ass backwards to avoid getting his groin area chomped off. More blood, but not enough. Not enough damage. Kira snarled as his plasma cannons filpped forward and unleashed a pair of bright blue-red beams which instantly vaporized the creature.

"This is bullshit." Kira growled darkly as he stalked through the bloody, flickering corridors. The beam rifle was a dead, warm weight in his hand, as if surgically attached. It might as well have been, considering how tightly he was gripping the weapon.

_'Aw, come on, Kira. At least it gives us something to do.'_ Yumi replied telepathically. He grinned briefly at her snide remark, keeping his eyes on the shadowed doorways, locked in the crimson trim of emergency lighting.

Kira finally made it down the long corridor, locating the double doors that led deeper into Main Engineering. At least his path was simple. The double doors in front of him led to the Excalibur's secondary and tertiary hyper deuteron nuclear reactors and then that led to the trio of warp cores and finally to the millions of ultra-compact energy batteries. Three simple sectors. Easy as pie. He stopped before the large double doors and stared up at them.

"I've got a problem." Kira muttered.

"What? Resistance?" Yumi replied immediately.

"Not of the alive kind. More of the locked door variety. And it's a big one. Can you...reroute it or something? Get to a security station, hack it?" He asked.

"Negative. If you can't find a way to open it from there, you'll have to go around. Security Centers are shot, far as I can tell. Besides, there's not enough power for a hack."

After a moment of thought, Kira brought both rail guns to bear and fired a pair of shells into the double doors, blowing them off their tracks and sending them spinning into the room to slam against the far wall.

Kira stepped out into a narrow corridor and glanced left. Nothing. He turned right and nearly soiled himself.

"Holy shit!" He bellowed, bringing up the beam rifle and managing to get off a single shot before a walking skeleton with glowing green eyes and a rocket launcher on each shoulder grabbed him. It managed an all too firm grip on his weapon and began pulling. Kira pulled back, desperate not to lose his critical killing machine, but it was obvious the creature, which Kira had already mentally dubbed; Revenant, was going to win. He let go, sending both of them stumbling backwards. The Revenant managed to recover faster, snapping the weapon in two and hurling both ends aside. It let out a shriek and blasted out a pair of rockets from its shoulder mounted launchers.

Kira's eyes widened as the incoming glare filled his vision. He barely managed to let himself drop. The rockets flew overhead, before continuing down the corridor to detonate against a wall. The amethyst-eyed man scowled as he unleashed a pair of blasts from his plasma cannons, vaporizing the hideous creature.

Kira entered another room that were actually part of a small series of rooms, which eventually led to the Excalibur's secondary hyper deuterion nuclear reactor. He slowly wound his way through them, becoming more and more disturbed as he did. It became apparent that something very bizarre was going on. The walls consisted mostly of panels of blipping, flashing switchboards, monitors and circuitry. But he began seeing patches of rotten, blackened flesh intermittently along the walls. Circuits were slowly becoming larger and thicker, and had blood flowing through them.

Closer inspection revealed that the metal had somehow grown pours, some of which sweated foul smelling liquid. Kira shuddered. This place was going from bad to worse. The air stunk of wretched, evil corruption. The lights were becoming dimmer, and the amethyst-eyed man was beginning to wonder if it would just be easier to activate the warship's massive self-detonation system and have all surviving crewmembers abandon the ship. Kira continued through the maze of tiny rooms made of flesh and steel, and began to suspect that there was something in there with him. He crept forward, his plasma cannons still out.

Something shrieked and pounced from the shadows to his right. No time to fire. He spun and bashed it in the face with his fist. The impact sent them both stumbling. It landed on its back, and Kira realized he had just come in contact with something new. It was hideous and very animalistic. The thing had five arms, four it perched itself on, like a dog, and one sprouted impossibly from its back. It also had a unique quality that, as far as Kira knew, he had never seen before: two heads. Each with a long, black tongue snaking out periodically.

Its back was a wreck, with two large, tumor like bumps that had split open and had bone like barb wire sticking up out of it.

"Just die." Kira sighed, firing twin beam blasts from the multi-phase cannons in his chest.

And suddenly the flesh and metal tunnel was torn away from around him. He was held aloft, suspended in eternal oblivion. Colder than space. Colder than death. And then he was shown the worst things he could ever imagine.

He saw the past. It was called up in front of his eyes very suddenly. He saw himself in the Strike Gundam, the crimson Aegis Gundam floating motionless for a few tense seconds before the Heliopolis Colony's outer shell cracked and split apart, venting the atmosphere into the cold void. He saw himself fighting Andrew Waltfeld; The Desert Tiger, in Africa, before plunging the Strike's anti-armor combat knife through the energy battery and cockpit. He saw the grey colored Providence Gundam floating omniously before his own Freedom Gundam, with the the giant gamma-ray laser GENESIS looming omniously behind the grey mobile suit. He saw the battle that ensued, a battle that he barely even comprehended and barely won. He saw the beginning of the Second Bloody Valentine War, which eventually led to the intense battle between his own Freedom Gundam and the Impulse Gundam. He saw the Impulse Gundam slam its anti-ship sword through the Freedom's torso, just beneath the cockpit.

He saw more recent images. The last few years. He saw the death and the face of every single man and woman that had died under his command as he united and led them in their attempt to eliminate all conflict. He watched as he failed, time and again, to save those around him. Regret, sorrow and self loathing welled up and burst inside his psyche in a horrific plume of disgust and terrified hatred. He watched the fall of Earth, first to the huge war which was raging on the surface and in the atmosphere, and then to the demons as they slaughtered the remaining humans.

He watched demonic things slay hundreds, thousands, millions, billions of his own people. Watched as they were tortured, slain and even how some of them had worked with the demons.

And then he saw things much worse. He saw possibilities, his worst fears come to life, his fears of what could happen.

He watched as he was stripped of his rank, dishonorably discharged and kicked out of Celestial Being, which was now nothing more than a small band of only a few hundred survivors, mostly the Gundam Miesters and their famlies.

He watched as Yumi was crucified to a wall, skinned alive and ruthlessly raped. She had unspeakable, impossible things done to her.

And still it worsened as he saw himself being divorced by Yumi. Her telling him that she never loved him. He watched her cheat on him, over and over again. He was shown and had no possibility of looking away. He was forced to watch by whatever entity controlled the current situation. He watched as Yumi, whom was once again pregnant, aborted their child before mercilessly raping and then brutally murdering Aoi, Allister and Akira. Finally, she walked away from him forever and left him alone in the darkness. All that he had ever loved was stripped away, bit by bit, turned against him.

A tidal wave of emotions welled up within him, threatening to overwhelm him. Impossible terror, vicious anger, disgust, unspeakable depression and sorrow and unimaginable hatred. And as this hurricane, this typhoon of negative emotions, swirled around him, all these images of everything that he ever hated or feared surrounded him, then a single beam pistol appeared. It dangled in front of him, like a steak in front of a starving man. Almost without thinking, he snatched it out of the air and shoved it into his mouth.


	82. Descent

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 82**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

"Commander." Came a muffled voice. It sounded urgent. Kira sighed heavily and rose from his bed. Clad only in a pair of black boxers, he moved swiftly across the room and opened up the door while Murrue remained asleep.

"Yeah?" He asked. A young solider, whom Kira quickly recognized as Allister, the son of Cagalli and Lacus, stood there with a very pale, very upset look on his face.

"Uh...sir...you and Murrue are needed on the bridge." He said quietly.

"What is it? What's wrong?" Kira asked. He was beginning to get worried.

"Just...go to the bridge. Lacus wants...needs to see you both. Immediately." Allister replied, and then wandered off. Kira immediately shut the door and began getting dressed. Something was seriously wrong, the crew only acted like that when they either had battle fatigue, were in shock, or had just seen their entire platoon slaughtered. He roused Murrue with a gentle hand. She came awake quickly and tense, but relaxed when she saw Kira.

"What is it?" She asked sleepily.

"Something's really wrong. Get dressed, we're needed on the bridge." Kira replied. Murrue was up in an instant. She had gone to bed nearly naked save for a pair of black panties. Soon they were both dressed in combat uniforms and heading together through the corridors.

Nearly three weeks had passed since the invasion had ended, and since then, there hadn't been any more invasion attempts or attacks. But even so, everyone onboard the Excalibur was still on edge, prepared for another attack or invasion. Little did they know that the next invasion attempt would come from the Earth.

They arrived on the bridge moments later, and Kira's stomach began doing flips as his greatest fear was confirmed. Down below, on Earth, a huger war was occurring. He watched in horror and numbness as a mushroom cloud appeared somewhere over Europe, followed by another right in the heart of America, and finally, another pair over Australia.

"God, no..." Murrue whispered.

"We didn't stop it. Christ, we didn't stop it at all!" Kira cried. They both simply stared for a long while with the others in numb silence. Cagalli suddenly roused herself. She moved over to the helm controls and began working them. With a jerk, the ship started again.

Kira stared around at the sullen, stricken faces of the crew members. The bridge of the Excalibur was bathed in crimson light, giving the room an ominous, surreal atmosphere. He could sense Murrue's presence next to him, just as tense and apprehensive as himself. They were currently making their way down through the atmosphere, reentering somewhere over North America. Meyrin, face taught with tension, gripped the handheld communications unit. She was speaking quietly and rapidly into it.

"I repeat, this is the warship Excalibur, transmitting on all channels, to anyone. Is anyone left down there?" She cried, her voice rising in desperation.

"Another one just blew, sir." Lacus grimly informed Kira. The amethyst-eyed man whipped his head towards the pink-haired beauty.

"Where?" He replied.

"South America. Brazil, it looks like. Wait, another one just went off in Italy."

"My God..."

"Why are they dropping so many nukes?" Cagalli murmured softly.

"They're panicking." Meyrin replied darkly. The bridge fell silent yet again save for the soft rumbling of the ship's hull as it entered the atmosphere. In the quietude, they broke through the low cloud cover and continued their descent towards the surface, near the east coast of North America. Meyrin brought the radio to her mouth again.

"I repeat, this is the Excalibur, somebody answer me, dammit!" She snapped. Again, a static answer. Meyrin slowly put down the radio on the console, replacing it to its place of origin.

"Maybe they're just too busy to answer." Kira murmured.

"Sure. Maybe they're all dead." Meyrin replied glumly. Before Kira had a chance to answer, a sharp beeping suddenly filled the bridge.

"We've got incoming!" Lacus cried out.

"What the hell is it?" Meyrin snapped. Kira's eyes hunted through the front windows. He could imagine an army of flying demons rising up to meet them. Instead, he saw a pair of bright lights streaking for them.

"Missiles. We've got auto-targeting missiles. They've locked onto us. I'm transmitting our code, but they don't seem to care..."

"This is a warship, dammit. Shoot them down!" Kira demanded. Instantly the Excalibur's anti-air defenses opened up, destroying the missiles with a hail of weapons fire, both physical and beam based.

On deck, the night was unnaturally clear and cold, and the bright of the stars burned in the frosty air. Around the crew in every direction, just a few hundred yards away, fog and clouds whirled, as if they were held at bay by the Excalibur's presence. Kira was at the railing leaning over along with the men on watch. Hope slowly approached him, suddenly desperate and panicked to know what was happening, when she saw it, the light flooding up from beneath the massive, dagger-shaped warship.

The sea was flat, like the surface of a mirror. The water was black, reflecting the pale pinpricks of the stars, but beneath the surface, something glowed with a cold light. Pulsating shapes of violet, green, and deep cobalt blue shone from beneath. The lights flowed and merged and shimmered silently, deep below the glassy sea.

The assembled crew stared, two dozen men and women, struck dumb and horrified by the sight. There was a sense of scale that emerged from the fluid movement of the lights; they seemed to be many fathoms beneath the ship, which would make them terribly large and impossibly fast. There were no solid shapes, and no disturbance of the water, just a deep field of liquid flowing light.

They watched for what seemed like hours, entranced by the mesmerizing ballet of cold light, a mirror reflection of the northern lights. When it ended, abruptly, there were three almost simultaneous events. First, the lights seemed to quickly contract, each one freezing in place and collapsing like the iris of an eye in bright sunlight. Secondly, there was a tremor in the air that raised the hair on the back of Kira's neck. As the ghostly lights winked out of existence, it rose in intensity, until he thought his eyeballs might shake their way out of his head. Through the fog of sudden pain, the amethyst-eyed man heard a noise; a humming vibration from the Excalibur itself, that matched the electric shuddering in his skull.

It was as if every lightbulb aboard the Excalibur were suddenly flushed with power, flaring bright and buzzing noisily in their housings, and when the whine had finally reached a fever pitch, they began to pop and shatter among a shower of sparks. From start to finish, it lasted less than two seconds, and the crew was left floating silently in the dark waters, beneath the starry sky, on a dead and crippled warship.

The damage was invisible, without any obvious cause, and total. Nothing aboard the Excalibur worked, each carefully crafted system of multiple redundancies had crumbled. Every light was shattered, even the replacement bulbs, and the small flashlights, which every single crewmember carried with them at all times, held fused and useless filaments. Satellite phones, shortwave radios, all means of communication were useless bricks of plastic and wire. Every battery was dead, every stereo system was silent. They were adrift, without engines, isolated from the world by a hundred miles of black and silent sea.

The crew moved through the massive ship that night like moles, fumbling through dark corridors with only a few pale green chemical lights to check each system. They relayed each disheartening message like a fire brigade through the darkness, to where Kira stood on the deck, trying to make sense of the senseless.

At last, when nothing else could be done, Kira fumbled his way back to his cabin, and tried to sleep, the darkness feeling like an oppressive many fingered hand, slowly gripping his chest.

The next morning, Kira again took stock of the situation, hoping for some fragment of hope which the crew could have unknowingly passed by in the night. The damage was total. They would have to find a way to send a distress call, and hope that they had not drifted too far from their last known coordinates. The men may not have known the full details, but it was clear from their haunted visages that they knew how dire the situation was.

As Kira stood there on the deck, Shinn walked up to him. "Why don't we rig a sail of some sort?" The crimson-eyed man suggested.

"And where exactly do you suggest that we get all the fabric necessary to make such a sail, Shinn?" Mayu asked, her eyes narrowing slightly.

Before Shinn could answer, however, Hope walked over to Mayu. "I think I know where we could get more than enough fabric to make a sail." Hope smiled, her amethyst eyes sparkling as she gently ran her fingers through Mayu's silken, ankle-length tresses. "I never did like doing things the easy way."

Before Hope could even begin to lengthen Mayu's soft, brunette tresses, however, Cagalli and Lacus had already figured out her plan and had begun to rapidly lengthen their own hair. Everyone watched in silent awe as the two women began to wrap their beautiful hair, which had reached a length of nearly three miles in only ten seconds, and was still steadily becoming longer, around the pair of large fore-masts, the soft strands quickly taking the shape of a trio of huge sails; the sail on the right consisting of Lacus's pink tresses, and the sail on the left consisting of Cagalli's blonde tresses, while the central sail was an equal mix of hair from both women, the color alternating in the center, steadily changing from golden blonde on the left-side, to bright pink on the right-side.

After the three sails had taken shape, the two women utilized their more divine abilities to instantly sever the hair that now formed the shape of the three sails from the main mass of their sliken tresses, while simultaniously weaving the individual strands of now severed hair into a single sheet, finally forming the trio of massive sails.

"W-what the hell was that?" Shinn asked, unable to believe what he had just seen.

"That is one of the abilities which we don't usually display in public, Shinn." Mayu answered, even as Cagalli and Lacus began to form the main sail. "Cagalli, Hope, Lacus, Murrue and I can lengthen our hair at will, and even control it as though it were a limb."

Less than thirty seconds later, the Excalibur sported a total of twelve huge sails. The three sails on the fore-mast were ballon-like spinnaker sails, the six sails on the pair of massive main-masts were square sails, while the three mizzen-masts were triangular bermuda sails. The four sails on the Excalibur's right-side were bright pink, the four sails on the left-side were golden blonde, while the four central sails swapped colors at their midpoint, steadily changing from bright pink on the right-side, to golden blonde on the left-side.

A few hours later, Murrue Ramius found Kira Yamato waiting in the hanger, the Strike Freedom Gundam was outside, along with the other Gundams, the machines having been moved outside the hanger for a faster launch since most of the Excalibur's systems were still being repaired. Kira had his arms crossed laconically across his chest and had an indolent smirk on his face. Murrue could not help but feel her breathing hitch a bit as Kira had walked over to her, still smiling in a way that made her wonder if he was going to kiss her or kill her. In retrospect, she rather wished he had just killed her.

"Strip." Kira commanded, not in a whisper, not in a conversational voice, but in a tone carefully modulated so that it would be heard throughout the entire hanger. Work on all the mobile suits came to a sudden stop as various mechanics, pilots and support staff perked up and peered at them, wondering if they hadn't misheard somehow, or wondering if Supreme Commander Yamato had just signed his own death warrant, and commanded Murrue to strip naked in the hanger! Not that many of them hadn't entertained a fancy now and then of getting Murrue to strip for them, but no one was brave enough to pursue such a dream, Murrue was way too powerful to risk that, she was the second most powerful of the six Supreme Commanders, after Kira himself!

She stared at him in disbelief, but there was no hint of jesting in his eyes or on his face. "Damn it, Kira, there's no need for..." She'd started to protest, before his finger on her lips stilled her mouth and speeded her heart.

"Strip, or stay behind." He said, for her ears alone. "I like you better in your natural state. Don't forget who owns whom, Murrue. So strip, now, here, and then we can be on our way." His finger moved away from her lips and stroked her chin and the side of her jaw, tickling her neckline a bit before he moved his hand back and gently combed his fingers through her ankle-length brunette hair, which she had unceremoniously shoved into the collar of her flight suit on her way down to the hanger. It might have looked cute to an outside observer, hell, it did have her heart thumping pretty hard, but it was nothing more than Kira displaying his dominance over her, his ownership of her, that he could touch her and play with her whenever he wanted.

"I hate you." She replied in a caustic whisper, as she began to remove her flight suit, hindered a bit by Kira continuing to pet and caress her as she did so, shifting his hands to each new piece of flesh as first the flight suit, and then the uniform underneath, fell away and exposed it. What had been highly erotic down in the Inner Sanctum was just about the most humiliating experience of her entire life, here in the brightly lit and somewhat crowded main hanger, with at least fifty people of both sexes looking on with stupefied expressions on their faces, their emotions radiating shock and a disturbing degree of disbelieving excitement, as they watched Supreme Commander Yamato humble the one woman no man of Celestial Being had ever been able to tame. What made it worse was the fact that she knew that she could easily just say no, and Kira would let her go with no hard feelings. But this opportunity to go with him on this self-appointed mission might be a once in a lifetime chance, and she didn't dare throw it away for the sake of her own pride. Damn him, but he was a master of giving her a choice of options of which she could only ever take the one which they both wanted.

"Do you?" Kira had replied, his smile stretching across his face in a way that let her know he didn't believe her in the slightest. But then he'd surprised her, yet again. "I'm glad to hear that, Murrue. Hate is an important emotion. You should learn to embrace it more often, it can be quite empowering in the right circumstances." He whispered into her ear as he slipped his hand down the front of her panties, right there in front of everyone, and Murrue felt her face turn cherry red, her arms trembling, caught between hugging him closer and pushing him angrily away, even as she began to wonder if he intended to fuck her, right there in front of everyone, in which case she knew that she would never be able to show her face onboard the Excalibur ever again, especially if he made her gasp and cry out in passion like he had so many times before. However, once she was naked, Kira made no moves to escalate things further. "Just remember who owns whom, Murrue." He told her again, and then instructed her to board her Gundam and follow him.

Moments later, the Divinity Gundam and the Strike Freedom Gundam ignited their thrusters and took off, both machines transforming into their mobile armor modes. The Divinity Gundam took the form of a white, red and black shuttle with glowing white delta wings, while the Strike Freedom Gundam took a similar form, but instead of glowing white delta wings, the Strike Freedom sported a pair of blue, forward swept wings. As they sped away from the Excalibur, both machines left three trails of glowing green GN particles in their wake.

Murrue had the entire three hour long flight to stew over the humiliation, her flight suit and uniform piled around her in the cockpit of the Strike Freedom Gundam, along with the shredded scraps of her dignity, and as a result she had paid much more attention to her brooding thoughts, her shame and her revenge fanatasies than she did to where exactly Kira was leading her.


	83. Pacifism

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 83**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

After the three hour flight, the Divinity Gundam finally tranformed out of its mobile armor mode and back into its mobile suit mode, with the Strike Freedom Gundam quickly following suit. The two pilots instantly found themselves looking down at the biggest, ugliest, meanest looking scorpion which they had ever seen, but never had nightmares about.

"Holy shit." Murrue whispered from within the Strike Freedom's cockpit, her plans for revenge against Kira instantly forgetten as she stared at the abomination far below.

Fortunately it was also a dead thing, visible holes from various sized rounds and even a few beam blasts dotting its sandy brown carapace in tight groupings, showing where it had taken multiple weapons from multiple angles at close range before subsiding and being buried by drifting sand. The body was about as thick as a human torso, the legs each about the size of a human leg, and there were ten of those, each of the back six ending in a wickedly barbed point, while the front four were equipped with pincer claws, two that were truly huge and two that were smaller, but not by much. There was no neck to speak of, the head grew right out of the abdomen, graced with clusters of dull eyes beneath heavy brows of chitin, wicked looking mandibles placed to either side of jaws that were filled with actual teeth, fangs and multiple tongues that looked like they were made for sucking blood or other fluids. The tail was as thick as a human thigh before narrowing to a bulging stinger spike that was at least six inches long and serrated like a combat knife. All told the thing probably stood two and half to three feet tall when standing, and was about the size and weight of a cow. Its carapace was an exact match for the color of the sand around it, only the dark eyes stood out, and even those appeared to have semi-translucent eyelids that could cloak them as well.

"Jesus H. Christ, what the fucking hell is that thing?" Shinn stammered in a half strangled voice as he, along with everyone else present on the Excalibur's bridge, stared at the creature as its image was fed through the live video feed from the Divinity Gundam.

"It's a monster! I've never seen any thing so hideous in my entire life!" Lunamaria commented, turning away from the grotesque thing on the monitor with a shudder. "I guess we found out what happened to the missing ZAFT landing party though. They must have stopped for a rest or something, and this thing was waiting for them in the sand...dear god, those poor people probably never saw it coming."

"Kira, what are you doing?" Cagalli yelled, even as the Divinity Gundam carefully landed on the desert floor, the angelic machine kicking up a large cloud of sand as it gently set down. "There could be more of those things around!"

No sooner had those words left her mouth than the sand directly beneath the feet of the Divinity Gundam suddenly exploded upwards like a geyser. Kira blinked as four clawed limbs whipped out of the sand, wrapped themselves around the Divinity's limbs and closed with bone crushing force, one claw pinning the left arm in place, before the stinger tail of the emerging creature slammed into the Divinity's chest, only to be deflected by the machine's MCPS armor.

"Logging data in targeting databanks for future reference." Lexi's voice spoke, even as the angelic machine quickly broke free from the creature's grasp, unleashed all 36 of its DRAGOON units and once more took to the skies. "Attacking object, to be hereby designated as Lambda 1, is roughly 1500 pounds and three feet tall at the shoulders, while the stinger can probably be raised to a height of nearly 10 feet." She paused for a few seconds beforeadding. "These things are most likely from alternate realities which we haven't seen yet."

"Eat this!" Kira screamed, even as he opened fire with all of his DRAGOON units, but to his horror, the searing green energy blasts were either absorbed or deflected off the creature's thick exoskeleton. "I think that thing would be much more appropriately called a Deathstalker, given the fact that it hides in the sand like a lazy fucking coward until a meal comes along!" The amethyst-eyed man roared as his DRAGOON units fired a final, yet futile barrage of beam blasts, the glowing beams once again being absorbed or deflected by the scorpion's thick hide. Kira scowled as the large creature roared at him. "Fuck you too!" He screamed back, lifting the Divinity's right arm and raising the middle digit in a most conspicuous salute, even as the DRAGOON units once more docked on his machine's back. The Deathstalker roared again, aiming its stinger at the hovering Divinity Gundam. "If you really think that you can beat me, then bring it on!" Kira challenged, carefully landing the Divinity back on the desert floor.

As soon as the Divinity Gundam's feet had touched the sand, five more Deathstalkers erupted from below the swirling desert floor. With the disregard for life and limb that only those with insectile minds could possibly hope to comprehend, the six Deathstalkers charged towards the angelic machine fearlessly. Kira responded instantly, opening fire with all of his weapons and sending gouts of dark black-blue ichor gushing from the bodies of the Deathstalkers where rail guns shells and beam blasts managed to burst through their thick hides. Despite the obvious damage, the nervous systems of the Deathstalkers were essentially immune to sensations of pain, and even when whole limbs were blown off they still continued forward, confident in the primal knowledge that any wonds which did not kill them would be regenerated during the next time they molted and grew out of their shells. Quickly closing on the angel-winged machine, three of the Deathstalkers hawked and spat out basketball-sized globs of viscous saliva from their mouths, while the other three projected needle-like streams of poison from their engorged stingers. The potent cocktail of exotic toxins sprayed into the face of the Divinity Gundam, only to harmlessly spaltter away from the machine's armor. The acidic saliva was a different matter altogether, and it began to steam wherever it touched the Divinity's armor, the outer surface rapidly beginning to melt away under the hissing fluid.

Kira stopped, dropped and rolled furiously in the sand when he caught a chest full of toxic saliva. Fortunately the sand seemed to scrape the worst of it off his machine, although the armor screamed at him, warning of external damage. "You stupid douchebag!" He roared, as the stinger tail mounted on the Divinity Gundam's back suddenly flipped forward, the twin beam cannons framing the head of the machine and unleashing a pair of green energy bolts. Much to his annoyance, however, this pair of beam blasts was deflected as well. "Fine then, it's time to take this shit to the next level." The amethyst-eyed man sighed. "TRANS-AM!" Kira smirked as the six creatures began to carefully back away as the angelic machine suddenly lit up with a blood red light and a pair of bright pink energy wings erupted from its back.

"Kira, we have a slight problem." Murrue's voice spoke from the cockpit of the Strike Freedom Gundam as it hovered high above the fight. "A huge formation of German aircraft is coming towards us, and according to what Asuka has translated from the intercepted radio transmissions they are very pissed."

"Have Asuka tell the Germans to fuck off!" Kira grunted, taking a punishing hit from one of the huge claws before the Divinity's faceplate split and the machine bit down on the offending appendage. The angelic machine let out an unearthly scream as it ripped the claw from its socket and began to beat one of the other scorpions with the severed appendage for a full ten seconds, before finally driving the limb through its head. The amethyst-eyed man smirked as he brought his right hand to his left shoulder, freeing the beam boomerang from the storage rack, igniting the weapon and finally hurling it at the remaining scorpions. As the twirling beam blade spun towards the creatures, the beam saber in the Divinity's left wrist came to life with a flash, even as Kira brought his rail guns and plasma cannons to bear. Finally, Kira ejected the Divinity Gundam's left hand, the dicarded appendage exploding upon hitting the ground, and allowing a razor-sharp, three-bladed, beam-edged claw to slide out from within the machine's forearm. The amethyst-eyed man grinned ever so slightly as the three-bladed claw that now took the place of his machine's left hand began to rapidly spin.

Kira watched the brightly glowing violet seed, veined with gold, fall through the pitch black void in his mind, before striking an infinitely dense barrier and shattering with a blindingly bright flash of pure white light. Back in reality, Kira's eyes opened, once more shaded in a metallic color, though they were more gold than violet now, his pupils expanding until his corneas were nothing more than a thin rim of violet around the gold, like the glowing corona of a sun during a total eclipse.

"Murrue." Kira's voice suddenly spoke through the communcations line. "Return to the Excalibur."

"What?" The marigold-eyed woman replied, even as the Strike Freedom freed the twin beam rifles from its hips, combined the weapons and aimed the now combined beam rifles, which functioned as a an extremely effective sniper rifle when combined, at the cloud of approaching aircraft. "Well, fuck me." Murrue muttered as the information regarding the approaching aircraft quickly began to appear on her sub-screens. There were more than 1,000 aircraft approaching the Divinity and Strike Freedom Gundams, and the force was a mix of fighters and bombers from various periods of history, but all of them bore the German swastika on the wings and tailfins.

The German fighters consisted of Arado Ar E.561s, Arado Ar E.581.4s, Focke-Wulf Fw-190s, Focke-Wulf Ta-183 Huckebeins, Hienkel He-162 Volksjagers, Lockheed Martin F/A-22 Raptors, Lockheed Martin F-117 Nighthawks, Messerschmitt Bf-109s, Messerschmitt Me-163 Komets, Messerschmitt Me 262 Swallows and Northrop YF-23 Black Widows, while the bombers consisted of Arado Ar E.340s, Arado E.555s, Boeing B-52 Stratofortresses Convair B-58 Hustlers, Focke-Wulf Fw-200 Condors, Hienkel He-111 Zwillings, Horten Ho-229s, Horten Ho-18As, Horten Ho-18Bs, Junkers Ju-87 Stukas, Junkers Ju-88 Destroyers and Northrop B-2 Spirits.

"There's not really time for sex right now, Murrue." Kira smirked, even as the Divinity Gundam brought its left arm back, before then thrusting it forward. The rapidly spinning claw effortlessly drilling through the face of the Deathstalker directly in front of him, sending torrents of dark black-blue ichor gushing from the body of the now very dead scorpion, even as the claw slowly stopped spinning.

The three remaining Deathstalkers quickly began to burrow frantically into the sand, with hopes of escaping with their lives. But with the Wings of Light and Trans-Am both active, very few things could even have a hope of outrunning the Divinity Gundam, and that point was made very obvious as the three creatures found themselves careening through the sky two short seconds later. As the Divinity ignited its thrusters and rose to hover beside the Strike Freedom, the pilots of the approaching German aircraft found themselves staring at a trio of giant flying scorpions.

"What the fuck are those?" One of the Fw-190 pilots asked as he turned shaprly to the right, barely dodging the trio of bodies as they smashed through the huge formation, taking more than 200 aircraft with them, before they finally began to lose their momentum and plunged earthward once more.

"I'm not sure." One of the Stuka pilots replied, surprise obvious in his tone of voice, as the aircraft began to fall into formation again. "But they looked like giant scorpions."

"This is becoming insane." Kira sighed as he ejected the Divinity Gundam's right hand, which like the left hand had done only a few moments earlier, exploded upon hitting the ground, allowing a razor-sharp, three-bladed, beam-edged claw to slide out from within the angel-winged mobile suit's forearm. The amethyst-eyed man sighed as the three-bladed claws that now took the place of both of his machine's hands began to rapidly spin.

"Why don't we just stay out of the world's affairs for a century or two, Kira?" Murrue suggested, even as she effortlessly dodged multiple streams of cannon fire from a group of five Messerschmitt Me-163 Komets, before disabling each one of the small fighters with a well placed burst from the Strike Freedom's head-mounted machine guns. "No one seems to like us much now that the timelines have been fractured."

"Really?" Kira sarcastically asked as he transformed the Divinity into its mobile armor mode, the three-bladed claws that now took the place of the machine's hands whirling rapidly, giving the angelic machine the appearance of a delta-winged, twin propeller-driven aircraft. "I would have never guessed that everyone on Earth hates us now."

"What the hell are those things?" One of the Bf-109 pilots asked, only for his engine to be disabled a half second later by a burst of machine gun fire from the Strike Freedom Gundam.

"I guess a couple centuries of not having to fight wouldn't be a bad thing." Kira smiled, even as he opened fire with all 10 of his 76mm wing-mounted machine guns, sending a hail of projectiles and energy blasts screaming through the sky. "What's the current year?"

"Well, to be completely honest, I'm not too sure what the current year is, but the year we had originally returned to was 1947." Murrue replied, rolling through a hail of bullets as she was fired upon from multiple angles.

"Yeah, a century or two of rest from these continous battles may be a good idea." Kira finally said, even as he opened an open-channel, all-frequency communications line. "All Celestial Being forces are hereby ordered to cease all intervention activities and return to the Excalibur immediately." With that, the Divinity Gundam and the Strike Freedom Gundam took off, heading back towards their massive, dagger-shaped warship.


	84. Armageddon

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 84**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

In the year 2000, Earth's scientists had predicted that the Arctic would be completely free of ice in seventy five years if greenhouse gases weren't drastically reduced, flooding coastal communities and archipelagos throughout the world by the year 2075. That prediction turned out to be overly optimistic as a tipping point for glacial meltdown was reached in summer of 2010. The resulting rise in ocean levels devastated economies on all seven continents.

Thousands of species of animals became extinct over the following decade, unable to adapt to the rapidly changing environment. The world's oceans eventually became uninhabitable for most marine life due to the absorption of carbon dioxide mixed with eroding calcium from dying reefs, turning the oceans to acid. Mosquitoes thrived in the increasing heat, spreading malaria, West Nile Virus, and Dengue Fever through all of North America and Europe.

In the fall of 2013, the United States President decreed martial law and ordered all persons attempting to cross America's borders to be shot on sight. Over the following five years widespread worldwide famine caused civil war in thirty seven countries including Russia, China, and India. The stockpiles of nuclear weapons from overthrown countries were sold to the highest bidder as the cycle of corruption repeated itself.

In 2024, after all attempts at diplomacy had failed, the United States launched a preemptive nuclear strike against the New Democracy of Arab States, which was a consortium of the oil rich nations of Dubai, Saudi Arabia, and New Palestine. Fearing their countries would also be targeted, Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran launched multiple nuclear attacks on the United States and each other. A total of 1,372 hydrogen bombs were detonated in fourteen nations around the world on July 10th 2024, guaranteeing the extinction of man and an end to all of his accomplishments.

Every television and radio station was now full of emotional, angry people. They had tears in their eyes and they were shouting, some even had torches and posters in their hands.

America had fired nuclear weapons into Iraq, vaporizing the entire country. The United States still had soldiers stationed in Iraq when the bombs hit. Kira hoped they thought of that before launching the weapons. Someone was aiming a nuke at the United States now. No one knew who yet, but there were now multiple bombs headed for America.

"Good evening, America." The newscaster began, even as screams could be heard from blocks away, along with the sounds of shattering glass and wailing sirens. "Thirty minutes ago the military confirmed half a dozen nuclear warheads heading towards our country." He paused for a few short seconds, but finally continued. "We have already received word that the first three weapons will impact in Washington DC, Detroit, Michigan and Atlanta, Georgia. The first weapon is expected to hit Washington within the next ten minutes." The newscaster put a hand to his ear for a moment, before once again continuing. "I've just been notified that the military has decided to launch its own nuclear weapons, although there is no word of what their targets will be." A few seconds later, the roar of distant rocket engines filled the air and the cameraman zoomed in on a bright point of orange-red light which was rapidly speeding up into the sky, leaving a thick, grey and white exhaust plume in its wake, the telltale sign of an intercontential ballastic nuclear missile.

As radioactive clouds began to spread around the globe less than ten minutes later, killing everything in their path, a long overdue silence finally fell over the Earth. Only the lowly cockroach and a few deep sea species of arthropods survived the initial year of the event.

If a planet could be said to be patient, Earth would certainly qualify. This was the fifth race to claim dominance over the land, and the fifth to fade into extinction because of arrogance, greed, and prejudice.

Throughout all this turmoil, Celestial Being had not interfered. But now, in what would have been the year 2025, the private armed organization was about to begin humanity anew.

The PLANTs still orbited the blue planet, although by this time they were goverened by Celestial Being and had become completely self-sufficent, no longer having to rely on supplies of any kind from the Earth.

"Attention all hands, as of six o'clock this morning, it is forbidden for female members of Celestial Being to wear clothing that conceals the nipples. Any clothing covering those parts must be transparent." Kira said as he stood on the Excalibur's bridge, speaking into the ship-wide communications system, his tone of voice leaving abolutely no room for arguement.

"What the fuck?" All of the women onboard shrieked in unison, with the only exceptions to the outburst being Cagalli, Hope, Lacus, Mayu and Murrue.

"In addition I am hereby repealing the rule against siblings getting married." Kira continued without any hesitation. "This includes marriages between mothers and sons, fathers and daughters, etcetera." He paused for a few seconds before finally continuing. "I realize that these measures may seem somewhat extereme, but keep in mind that we are the only remnant of the human race and as such, it's our duty to repopulate the planet and ensure the continuation of our species."

"You son of a bitch!" Shinn roared a few moments later, as the door leading to the bridge slid open, allowing the crimson-eyed man to enter, followed closely by Lunamaria, Athrun and Meyrin. Before anyone could say anything, Shinn had delivered a devestating punch to Kira's face, sending him reeling.

Athrun said nothing as Shinn delivered a second punch, before Kira finally grabbed Shinn's arm and twisted it behind his back with a single movement, stopping just short of the breaking point.

Finally, Kira let go of Shinn's arm, produced a small package from his pocket and opened it. Shinn stared as Kira fished out one of the garments and opened it out. It was a perfectly transparent bra, the size of a skimpy bikini top.

"The fabric is not only transparent but it's also non-reflective, so there won't be any glare off them." Kira grinned, while everyone else remained silent. "The girls will essentially look naked, and only on close inspection will a very slight sheen become apparent."

"This is bullshit." Shinn snarled.

"I don't think it's bullshit, Shinn." Mayu spoke up. "Humanity has exterminated itself and as a result, eveyone on the Excalibur has to do their part to help restore the human race."

"Let me guess." Shinn scowled after a moment of silence. "Our children will also have to do their part to help restore the human race, huh?"

"They certainly don't have to if they don't want to." Kira answered. "But they are more than welcome to help with restoring humanity if they wish to do so."

"You make me sick sometimes, Kira." Shinn sighed, before turning and walking off the bridge, leaving the amethyst-eyed man looking at his childhood friend, Athrun Zala.

"Yes, Athrun?" Kira calmly asked, knowing that his friend probably had an opinion as well.

"Kira." Athrun spoke after a few more seconds of tense silence. "I have no problem with having to help repopulate the Earth and saving the human race, but giving our children the option to help with that task? Do you really think that is necessary?"

"I'm giving them the option to help." Kira said. "They don't have to assist us with repopulating the Earth if they don't want to."

"And what will the cutoff age be?" Meyrin finally spoke up. "The age at which helping to repopulate the Earth and revive humanity is no longer a choice, but an order?"

"I wish that you wouldn't phrase it in such an extreme manner." The amethyst-eyed man frowned. "But in answer to your question; the cutoff age is 18 years." Athrun and Meyrin both let out a sigh of relief.

A few hours later, the entire crew had assembled in either the massive main conference room, the equally large crew lounge, or one of the many hanger bays and after a few short, and somewhat tense, seconds, Kira's voice boomed from the PA system. "Good morning members of Celestial Being. As I'm sure you are all aware, humanity made the foolish decision to exterminate itself only a few years ago."

"So, why should we really care?" The voice of Hope Yamato asked from within the crowd of people that had gathered in the crew lounge. "It's not like we haven't seen it happen before."

"As a result of humanity's decision, we have been tasked with repopulating the Earth and saving our species from extinction." Kira continued, completely ignoring Hope's outburst. The amethyst-eyed man certainly wasn't going to announce it to the entire crew, but humanity wasn't the only species that they would be working to bring back from the brink of extinction within the coming centuries. "Our first order of business is to find habitable areas; specifically places which haven't been flooded by tidal waves or rising sea levels, inundated with nuclear fallout, or otherwise rendered inhospitible for life."

"I wonder which would be worse." Asuka Langley Soryu mused as her red and orange F/A-22 Raptor screamed low over the now desolate German countryside. "Dying in a nuclear armageddon or dying in Third Impact."

"I doubt that either one would be very pleasant, Asuka." Misato Katsuragi quietly replied as her purple F/A-22 Raptor dove out of the clouds and pulled alongside the lava red and pumpkin orange aircraft.

"Probably not." The redhead agreed with a sigh, as the two fighter aircraft continued their recon sweep of the ruined German countryside. "I doubt that Third Impact would cause this much destruction though."

"Hopefully we'll never find out." Misato said, even as both Raptors achieved supercruise, effortlessly slicing through the sound barrier without having to ignite their afterburners, the twin sonic booms rocking the wasteland below.


	85. Confessions

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 85**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

**Warning:** This chapter contains an extreme lemon, and is not suitable for anyone under the age of 18.

* * *

A few hours later, Asuka and Misato finished their recon sweep and had returned to the Excalibur, they now intended to give Kira a piece of their mind concering the new dress code.

On their way to the bridge, they were joined by ace ZAFT pilot, Shiho Hahnenfuss, who also intended to let her opinion about the new dress codes be known.

"Kira, I still think that recruiting me into your harem is a little extreme." Lexi's voice said as Asuka, Misato and Shiho walked onto the bridge.

"So, the rumor is true." Shiho smirked as she walked up to Kira, her waist-length brunette tresses swaying slightly as she approached him. "You do have a harem." Shiho's dark violet eyes sparkled as she intently watched Kira. "Now that I know this, I can't help but wonder if any of the other rumors are true."

"Let me guess, Shiho." The amethyst-eyed man quickly replied, even as Lacus tapped a few of the controls at her stataion, sealing the bridge off with a level ten force field. "You want to join my harem, don't you?"

Shiho's eyes widened slightly, even as she nodded, a deep blush tinting her cheeks as she answered. "Y-yes."

"I had a feeling that was the case." Kira grinned, before gently placing a hand on the back of Shiho's waist, idly touching the tips of her silky hair with his fingers as he pulled her body towards his own. "So, what other rumors have you heard about me?"

Shiho opened her mouth to answer, only to be interrupted by Asuka. "Who cares if Kira is in a harem?" The red-haired Evangelion pilot scowled. "I'm surprised that he has found anyone that would love him." She continued, narrowing her eyes at Kira before then turning to glare at his five lovers. "Much less the five of you." Asuka paused for a few seconds, but finally she continued. "I still don't understand why the five of you have setteled for him." She sighed, shaking her head. "You could all do so much better." Silence fell upon the bridge for a moment, before Asuka once again spoke, this time addressing Kira's five lovers. "What do you all see in him anyway, and how is it that the five of you aren't constantly fighting over him?"

"The answer to your first question is simple, Asuka." Lacus answered. "We love him."

"As for why we aren't constantly fighting over him..." Cagalli said, picking up from where Lacus had left off. "We are all married to him, and to each other."

As the blonde-haired beauty finished speaking, Kira pulled away from Shiho, quickly moving to stand at the front of the bridge, even as his five lovers began to gather around him on either side. Once the five beauties had gathered around their amethyst-eyed lover, all five of the women, along with Kira himself, raised their left hand, with the back of their hands facing the other three women, putting their wedding rings on full display. Kira's own wedding ring was a reletively simple platinum band, paved with small diamonds, while the wedding rings that his five lovers wore were infinitely more complex and striking.

"Mein Gott." Asuka breathed, while Misato and Shiho simply stared at the wedding rings in stunned silence. After staring, in awe, shock, jealousy as well as concealed outrage, at the extravagent rings which the five women wore on their ring finger, Asuka yelled. "How the fuck did you manage to get five Chopard Blue Diamond Rings!?"

"It was actually easier than you might think." Murrue smiled.

The Chopard Blue Diamond Ring, which the five women wore, was a ring that made any other diamond ring look horrible in comparsion. Set with an enormous, oval-shaped blue diamond weighing in at nine karats, the expensive ring also had diamond shoulders and an eighteen karat white gold band paved with diamonds.

"Blue diamond is one of the most expensive diamonds in the entire world." Asuka sputtered, her expression still one of awe, shock and jealousy, although her outrage was beginning to slowly make its way into her voice. "It is only found among boron deposits, which gives the gem its unique shade of blue."

"That's true." Hope smiled. "The five of us each possess the most expensive ring in the world." She paused for a few seconds, quickly performing some math in her head. "All five of these rings together are valued at $81.3 million."

After another moment of silence, Kira looked straight at the three women and smiled. "Asuka, Misato, Shiho, would the three of you like one of these wedding rings?" He asked, gesturing to the extravagent wedding bands that each his lovers possessed.

Asuka spoke up almost instantly. "If it will give me access to the same god-like powers that you seem to wield from time to time, as well as that secret section of this ship, which you refer to as the Inner Sanctum, I'd have to be crazy to refuse an offer like that!"

"Wait." Kira scowled. "Asuka, you owe me a few explanations."

"About what?" Asuka inquired, genuinely confused.

"About what?" Kira repeated incredulously. "Asuka, Asuka, Asuka." He said, shaking his head slowly. "Didn't you know?" She still looked bewildered and didn't answer, so he continued. "You see, about a week after that incident involving you, Misato, Mayu and myself, I was helping Lexi with some simple, and quite routine, system maintnence." Asuka tried hard not to cringe or think back to the night during which she had gotten the idea to follow Kira and Mayu down into the Inner Sanctum, dragging Misato along with her in the hopes that the other woman might take some of the blame. "Now, I admit that maybe it was nothing more than a coincidence that, during a routine scan of all the computers onboard the Excalibur, Lexi happened to come across a directory on your laptop hard drive with my name on it." Kira's amethyst eyes were now looking directly into Asuka's own sky blue eyes. "But, was it a coincidence that the folder Lexi found not only contained thouands of pictures of me, but that it also contained hundreds of videos which are only accesable to myself and my lovers?" He was glaring at her by the time he'd finished his last statement.

"Look, Kira, I really don't know what the hell you're talking about." Asuka said quickly, now looking down at the floor.

"Is that right?" Kira replied, narrowing his eyes.

"No, really I don't." Asuka looked him in the eyes again, struggling to keep her tone of voice even as she spoke. "All that Lexi really told Misato and myself was that the girls in your harem have the ability to control the length of their hair at will, and that they can move their hair as if it were a limb." The red-haired girl paused for a long moment, but finally she continued. "She said that you were the one who gave your lovers that ability, since you have a fetish for long hair." She paused again before finally adding. "Lexi also told us that you are all able to regenerate from injury, at least to a point. She never mentioned anything about some secret porn stash."

"Lexi!" Kira growled angrily, the speaking of the AI's name causing her holographic form to suddenly appear before him. "When I first programmed you, I gave you specific orders not to tell anyone about multiple things." He scowled. "Specifically; our regenerative abilities, our immortality or the Inner Sanctum's secret computer network! Did you think I was kidding?"

Lexi could see that Kira's demeanor was changing. His almost playful mocking tone was gradually turning into an angry rage with almost every word he spoke. Lexi had seen this transformation only a few times before and, even then, only in videos. She thought that she would never have to witness it first hand herself, since most of Kira's lovers had reletively dominant personalaties, both inside and outside of the Inner Sanctum.

"N-no." Lexi quietly whimpered, her more subbmissive programming almost instantly taking over. "B-but you also programmed me to try and entice women whom you were attracted to into joining your harem." Lexi's words instantly caused Asuka, Misato and Shiho to widen their eyes in shock.

Lexi knew she was in trouble now. Almost absent-mindedly, she began trying to think of the best escape route from her current predicament. However, the fact that Kira could actually control her with his thoughts was going to greatly limit most of her options for fleeing. Lexi also knew that in a fight with Kira, she'd lose. Kira was infinitely stronger than her and she really didn't want to get hurt. She could yell and scream for help, but she feared that such actions would only end with her holographic systems being deleted, and she greatly preferred her holographic existence compared to one as nothing more than a piece of software lackng any freedom. Lost in her thoughts as she was, Lexi was unaware of any of Kira's movements within the room. Suddenly, she felt strong hands fiercely grab hold of both of her arms, turning her to face him.

"You've been a very bad girl, Lexi, revealing all of that information to Asuka, to Misato, and now, to Shiho as well." He said angrily, digging his fingers into her arms, slightly bruising her delicate, yet holographic flesh. "And you know what happens to bad girls, don't you? Bad girls have to be punished." He said harshly, answering his own question.

Before his words could fully register in her brain, Kira had sent a single thought to the Excalibur's central computer, and Lexi suddenly found herself to be completely naked. Her full breasts were completely exposed and her nipples immediately began to harden due to the cool air in the room. She moved her hands up instinctively to cover her breasts from his lustful gaze. Lexi could feel the burning flush coming into her cheeks. "Don't be shy now." Kira said sardonically, gently knocking Lexi's hands away from her perfect breasts so that he could continue to gaze at them.

"Kira." Misato spoke after a few seconds of silence. "Asuka is still underage, she's only sixteen years old."

"Actually, I'll be seventeen in about a week, Misato." Asuka corrected, not bothering to hide the annoyance in her voice.

While a total of about thirty years had passed by on the Earth's surface since Asuka and Misato defected from Nerv, even with the fractured timelines, only about three years had passed onboard the Excalibur. This was due, at least in part, to the fact that one of the ship's numerous power sources was a temporal warp core, which greatly slowed the passage of time on the ship, in addition to providing the huge warship with massive amounts of energy.

_'Well, I suppose that I could utilize some of my more divine abilities to speed up Asuka's aging process slightly, increasing her age from sixteen to eighteen.'_ Kira thought, mostly to himself, even though he didn't bother blocking his five lovers from hearing the thought within their own minds.

_'None of us would really mind if you did that, Kira.'_ His five lovers telepathically replied in perfect unison.

_'And what do the five of you think about having Asuka, Lexi, Misato and Shiho join our harem?'_ Kira telepathically asked his five lovers, knowing that they were constantly reading the minds of the three potential new additons to the harem.

_'Asuka, as you may already know, is more than willing to join us.'_ Cagalli answered.

_'Misato is just as willing as Asuka is to join us.'_ Lacus answered. _'In fact, she can hardly stop thinking about how much pleasure you gave her after she followed Asuka into the Inner Sanctum.'_

_'Shiho is also quite willing to join us.'_ Murrue responded. _'She actually seems to have an exterme fantasy of her own.'_ The brown-haired woman giggled. _'It seems that she has a desire to mate with a gaint octopus.'_

_'And we all know that Lexi has wanted to join our privileged group since we first brought her online.'_ Kira finished, before walking up to Asuka and wrapping his arms around her waist, causing the red-haired woman to squeak in surprise.

"Wha-what are you doing, Kira?" Asuka quietly asked.

"You want to join my harem, right?" Kira asked, causing Asuka to blush slightly before silently nodding. "I am effectively giving you permission to do so." With those words, Kira began to utilize some of his more divine abilities, increasing Asuka's age from sixteen to eighteen in a matter of only ten seconds.

Asuka blushed slightly as a pleasurable tingle quickly spread throughout her entire body, although she certainly didn't fail to notice the fact that her breast size had increased slightly. Misato and Shiho both watched in silent awe as Asuka's hair suddenly lengthened. The orange-red tresses, which had only five seconds earlier, stopped at the small of her back, now fell down to her ankles.

"H-how did you do that, Kira?" Misato asked, after silently staring at Asuka's newly lengthened hair for three full seconds.

"How did I do what, Misato?" Kira asked.

"How did you lengthen Asuka's hair?" Misato asked, her voice slowly taking on a slightly jealous tone. "A few seconds ago, Asuka's hair only fell to the small of her back, but now it goes all the way down to her ankles."

"Oh, you mean this?" The amethyst-eyed man asked, breaking the gentle embrace with Asuka, only to wrap his arms around Misato's waist. As soon as Kira had embraced her, Misato felt a slight tingling in her scalp, as her own tressses lengthened, the silken strands going from hanging at her waist, to resting at her ankles in less than three seconds. Before Misato could say anything, however, Kira had already let her go and had wrapped his arms around Shiho's waist, once again utilizing his powers to quickly extend the ace pilot's soft brunette strands from waist-length to ankle-length.

Kira smiled slightly as he slowly broke the embrace and pulled away from Shiho, before then walking back to his five lovers.

"Well, I guess that we just got three more lovers." Cagalli smiled after a few seconds of silence.

"You mean four more lovers, Cagalli." Lexi's voice spoke up, as the holographic beauty, whom was once again dressed in her standard Celestial Being uniform, appeared beside the golden-eyed beauty.

"Oh yeah." Cagalli nodded. "I don't know why, but I forgot that Kira has also recruited you into our harem." The blonde replied, quickly correcting herself. "So, I guess you're right, Lexi. We do have four more lovers."

"Well, ladies." Kira said, addressing his five current lovers, even as Lexi's holographic image suddenly vanished, only for her to reappear an instant later, now standing between Asuka and Shiho. "Shall we take these four beautiful women down to the Inner Sanctum and begin their initiation?" Kira's five lovers instanstly nodded, grinning as they did so, and with that, they moved towards the elevator. Once all ten of them had stepped into the elevator, Kira entered his access code, causing the elevator to begin its descent towards the Inner Sanctum.

About five minutes later, Shiho appeared more than a little apprehensive as she was directed up the steps of a scaffold towards one of the newest additions to the Inner Sanctum. The device that she was being directed towards consisted of a clear plastic tube 12 feet in height, and 6 feet in diameter, it had a floor consisting of a steeling grating and a ceiling with 2 fiberglass bars forming a cross, and a large hose was attached to the bottom of the device underneath the scaffold.

The hose located under the scaffold would blow a mini-tornado of air through the grating in the floor, while another large hose, equipped with a vacuum head, was attached to the top of the tube, vacuuming away any articles of clothing out through the top, while the cross in the ceiling keeps the captive in the tube from being whisked away.

A bright fluorescent pink laser ring ran along the outside circumference of the tube, this would determine both the size and shape of the woman in the tube, not to mention what she was wearing. The information was then fed into the Excalibur's main computer, which ran the device. All one had to do was press the 'ON' button and the device activated, just as you would with a household vacuum cleaner.

Kira was on the scaffold for this first live demonstration. He had heard his other lovers discussing this device with each other through their telepathic conversations, and he had to see it in action. The device itself was hidden behind a wall in the Inner Sanctum's changing room. Kira had selected Shiho particularly because she would look stunning with her body captured in the suction, and because, unlike the other three women, Shiho would have absolutely no idea what to expect. When she reached the top of the scaffold and the tube's threshold, she looked at Kira, and the amethyst-eyed man instantly noticed that Shiho had a very worried expression on her face.

Kira stepped forward and smiled. "Shiho, please don't be worried. Actually I think you'll like this." Shiho give Kira a weak smile and turned away, but he gently turned her head so that she was looking at him and said. "Please? I promise that I'll give you anything you want after this." She smiled more brightly and nodded. Kira smiled as he directed her into the tube. Her uniform dress felt so nice and soft. Kira then sealed the door behind Shiho as she turned around and looked at him in apprehension and anticipation.

Kira hit the 'ON' button on the control console a few feet away, and the mini-jet under the scaffold slowly began to whine up the rpms, while the pink ring scanned her. Shiho looked at Kira with an expression of surprise, slight fear and embaressment on her face.

Wisps from the small tornado began to spin at her feet, slowly filling her dress with air, causing it to billow. Shiho's mouth fell open, her eyes lit up, and Kira was treated to her beautiful smile. As the tornado grew and rose, Shiho tried to hold down the front of her dress, and she was initially successful.

However, the back of her dress also flew up, and this movement was picked up by a sensor on the cross overhead, which instantly activated the vacuum head above her. Shiho's arms were clearly no match for the sudden and powerful suction, as they flew up over her head, only to be followed less than a second later by her dress as the tornado completely consumed her beautiful body.

As the tornado descended, Kira noticed that Shiho wasn't wearing a bra. Although she did make a feeble attempt to cover up, which made it easier for the device to finish stripping her in the next stage. For a few seconds the tornado disappeared down through the grating and Shiho appeared relieved that, while she was almost completely naked, her ordeal was over, or so she thought. Her ordeal was not over, at least not yet, since her silky red panties still needed to be removed.

She had her hands pressed against the tube when the second phase began. The vacuum head activated again, the suction even more powerful than before, causing every single strand of her ankle-length hair to stand up. Her eyes showed surprise, and then she was lifted off the floor as the tornado quickly ascended through the grating to her waist and back down again, removing her panties. She was completely stripped. She was done. She looked perfect.

Kira smiled as he opened the door, allowing Shiho to step back into the changing room, and even though she wasn't going to say it out loud, the violet-eyed beauty was glad that Kira's other five lovers had taken Asuka, Lexi and Misato into the Inner Sanctum before he had directed her into the machine which had stripped her of her uniform. Without any hesitation, the amethyst-eyed man gently took Shiho's hand into his own and led her into the Inner Sanctum.

"Wow." Shiho breathed, her eyes widening in amazement as she took in her new surroundings.

"Here within the Inner Sanctum, even the wildest of sexual fantasies can become reality." Kira grinned, wrapping his arms around Shiho's waist.

Shiho hesitated for a few seconds, but finally a deep blush tinted her cheeks as she spoke up. "I-I have always wanted to be fucked by a giant octopus."

"If you want, Shiho, I can make that dream a reality." Kira smiled, breaking the gentle embrace.

Shiho's blush deeppened as she eagerly nodded, and Kira smiled as he took her hand and quickly leading her into the elevator at the end of the room. Once they were both inside the elevator, Kira pressed the button which would take them to the second floor of the Inner Sanctum, which housed the aquarium and swimming pools.

As Shiho waded into the water a few moments later, a single shape quickly moved through the water toward her, and she squeaked in surprise as powerful suction cups, which she instantly realized belonged to a giant octopus, suddenly attached to her inner thighs and over her erect nipples, quickly applying a firm yet gentle suction to her aroused nipples, even as another sucker found her clit and all three of them did what suckers do best. Shiho screamed in ecstasy.

Suddenly the creature was upon her. An onslaught of tentacles descended on her nude body, and then it was time for the suckers again, more of them now, inside and out, teasing her clit, her vaginal lips and her g-spot simultaneously, with still more of them slicking their way up to her nipples, giving them the same delicious attention as her cunt.

There was nothing left of Shiho's mind to protest now. It had all been burned, or sucked, away, and all that remained was pleasure. Every cell in her body flared with an orgasm the likes of which she'd never even imagined possible. She could do nothing but simply enjoy the experience.

Somewhere in the midst of it all came a brief flare of pain, right at the center of her being, as she was, for all intents and purposes, paralyzed. But that thought was swept away as quickly as every other one had been, inked out by a new and even more powerful round of orgasms that took her to depths, rather than heights, of ecstasy. Of course, by this point, she couldn't even tell the difference.

The octopus immediately took advantage of Shiho's lust and funally stuck its long mating tentacle into her womanhood, stopping just short of her cervix as it eagerly explored her quickly moistening vagina. Finally, after a few moments of exploration, the octopus really entered her. She moaned loudly as she was instantly brought to the most intense orgasm she had ever experienced in entire her life. Octopus semen squirted by the pint deep into her womb, with a definite chance of impregnation.


	86. The Depths of Passion

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 86**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

**Warning:** This chapter contains an extreme lemon, and is not suitable for anyone under the age of 18.

* * *

As Kira slowly and seductively introduced Shiho to various forms of pleasure which he and his lovers utilized, Asuka and Misato were getting a much less sensual crash course on the same subject in the Inner Sanctum's dungeon.

Asuka and Misato rapidly blinked their eyes, trying futilely to clear their vision, as Cagalli, Hope, Lacus, Mayu and Murrue, quickly hustled them both into what appeared to be a small interrogation room with a pair of chairs in the center of the room, the five women quickly binding the two former Nerv soldiers to the chairs. Asuka and Misato were now both sitting in a chair, their arms and hands bound to each armrest, their ankles bound to the legs of the chair in which they sat.

Lacus grinned sadastically as she displayed an injection gun and several hard plastic vials, a bright, intense pink-violet liquid swirling inside the vials, twenty milliliters of it per vial, and there were a total of twelve vials. "One hundred percent pure Pink Passion, street value of almost ten thousand dollars per vial."

"What the fucking hell do you think you're doing to us?" Asuka roared, struggling against the thick restraints.

"What am I doing?" Lacus chuckled as she quickly loaded the first vial into the injection gun. "I'm about to give the two of you the best orgasm of your lives. Pink Passion, as I'm sure you are both aware, is an illegal drug which overstimulates the pleasure centers in the brain, so that the slightest sensation, no matter what it is, releases massive amounts of endorphins and other pleasure inducing chemicals, into the body. With twenty milliliters of one hundred proof Pink Passion in your systems, I could slice open your abdominal cavaties with a circular saw and perform a live dissection on the two of you, and you would only scream for more! I can't stress enough how terribly addicting this brand of chemical pleasure is. We would know, after all, since that wonderful drug is flowing through our veins at this very moment." The blue-eyed beauty smiled, gesturing towards Cagalli, Hope, Mayu, Murrue and herself.

"You people are sick." Asuka spat.

Lacus merely grinned, pressing the injection gun to Asuka's throat and squeezing the trigger. There was a quiet hiss as a blast of air opened a pore in her skin and then shot the pink-violet liquid into her bloodstream. Asuka closed her eyes and shuddered, her entire body twisting in the chair as the drug mixed into her blood and started to be absorbed into her brain. Lacus then removed the empty vial, quickly reloading the injection gun with another vial full of the incredibly potent aphrodisiac.

As Lacus reloaded the injection gun and moved towards Misato, Asuka felt a thick metal dildo suddenly penetrate her vaginal lips, causing her to let out a gasp of surprise and pleasure. The red-haired woman was about to protest again, when a jolt of electricity suddenly lanced out from the metal rod embedded in her womanhood. "Mein Gott!" She cried out, her voice laced with pleasure as the dildo began to vibrate and the electric current steadily flowed into her body, causing her vaginal muscles to involuntarily clench around the thick rod which had impaled her. Asuka's entire body went rigid, her wrists and ankles straining against the shackles, her body awash in euphoric bliss from the effects of the potent drug. "Gott im Himmel mehr!" She screamed.

Misato could only watch helplessly as the young German girl writhed in the chair next to her. _'Asuka...'_ Misato thought, before then glaring at Lacus and yelling. "What have you done to her!"

"Relax, Misato." Lacus said. "I merely unlocked the deepest levels of pleasure from within her own body." The blue-eyed woman calmly explained as she pressed the injector gun to Misato's neck. "Just as I will for you." With those words, she pulled the trigger sending the potent drug into Misato's bloodstream.

For the next hour, both Misato and Asuka remained shackled to their respective chairs, their bodies awash in pleasure from the devices within the chairs. Finally, Lacus decided that it was time to take things a few steps higher, and released the two Eva pilots from their seats. Asuka fell forward into Lacus's arms, while Cagalli with the help of Murrue, hefted Misato's limp form over to the large bed.

"Now then." Lacus said, after gently laying Asuka on the bed. "What shall I do to you, my dear?"

Before the blue-eyed beauty could do anything, however, Mayu gently placed a hand on her shoulder. "I think I'll take this one, Lacus." The violet-eyed woman smiled. "After all, she owes me for interrupting my first time with Kira."

Lacus thought about Mayu's request for a moment, before then looking over to Hope, who gave a silent nod. "Alright, Mayu, she's all yours." The pink-haired woman smiled. "She's your first virgin, right?"

"Indeed she is." Mayu answered with a smile, even as she climbed on top of the young German girl.

"Just make sure she screams." Lacus sadistically grinned as she moved over to join Cagalli and Misato.

"She will know pleasure beyond her wildest dreams, Lacus." Mayu promised as she leaned down and teasingly ran her tongue along Asuka's jaw line before then looking deeply into the red-haired beauty's half-lidded eyes. "I have plans for you, Fräulein." The violet-eyed woman purred as she reached up to the headboard of the bed, produced a pair of thick silk scarves and quickly bound Asuka's wrists together. Once Mayu was satisfied with Asuka's restraints, the brunette-haired beauty got off the bed and silently strode into a small storage closet, she then walked over to s large chest, opened the lid and quickly pulled out numerous items, before finally returning to the restrained girl.

Asuka's eyes widened when Mayu returned a few moments later. The violet-eyed woman was now dressed in a skin-tight, black bodysuit which was made of the finest silk. She held a leather whip in her right hand and a solid oak paddle in her left. Her breasts threatened to burst any minute from the skin-tight, low-cut outfit and to add to the sexy effect, Mayu's silk panties posessed a very large dildo. In addition, Mayu's silken brunette tresses, which had previously fallen to her ankles, now extended for nearly ten feet.

She looked absolutely stunning, but the two things that caught Asuka's eye mostly, after she had drunk in Mayu's formidable, haughty beauty were the leather whip in her right hand and the solid oak paddle in her left.

Mayu stepped to the side of the bed and sat down. "Now, my dear Asuka." She said, in a voice which was now sweet and soothing. "What happens to naughty little girls who pry into the private lives of their superior officers?"

Asuka swallowed deeply. She was no longer an 18-year-old university graduate, and renowned Evangelion pilot, she was a naughty little girl, ready to bend over Mayu's lap for a well-deserved spanking. "They get punished, Ma'am." Asuka replied, hearing a strange, husky sound in her voice.

"That's right, you wicked little girl." Mayu nodded. "They get punished and then all is forgiven."

"Mein Gott, sie ist wunderschön." Asuka breathed, even as the brunette-haired woman slid the whip into a holster on her right hip, while slipping the paddle into a holster on her left.

"Thank you, Asuka." Mayu blushed as she climbed onto the bed. "But don't think that by complimenting me, you'll be able to get out of your punishment." With that, Mayu straddled Asuka, before then plunging the thick dildo into the red-haired girl's womanhood, causing her to sharply arch her back and scream in pleasure as the brunette-haired beauty began to eagerly thrust the toy into Asuka's tight slit.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the bed, Murrue Ramius had fallen into a light sleep as Hope Yamato and Cagalli Yula Athha eagerly fed from her soft breasts. Cagalli's golden eyes suddenly shot open, and she immediately stopped suckling when she saw the mental image of Mayu dressed in a silk dominatrix outfit.

Murrue slowly opened her eyes when she noticed that Cagalli had stopped breastfeeding, and the marigold-eyed woman instantly recognized the look in the blonde-haired woman's eyes; that of the desire to submit.

"Before I'm through, you'll wish that I had thrown your sorry ass in the brig and left you there to rot." Mayu vowed as Asuka's body writhed beneath her.

"Yes, Mistress." Asuka moaned, having no doubt that the brunette-haired woman's words were true.

"Are you sorry?" Mayu asked after finally reaching her climax, even as she stopped thrusting the dildo into Asuka, to the blue-eyed woman's annoyance however, Mayu didn't remove the thick rod from her tight slit. The dildo that was embedded deep within Mayu's womanhood instantly sensed her release, siphoned away her vaginal honey, converted it into semen, and finally shot it deep into the red-haired woman's waiting womb, instantly bestowing the German girl with all of the abilities that Kira and his lovers shared.

"Yes, I'm really sorry." Asuka panted, trying to charm the violet-eyed beauty.

"I don't want to hear your lies." The brunette-haired woman snapped. It was about time that Asuka learned to how be a responsible adult, and Mayu was going to be the one to teach the red-haired woman the proper lessons. The violet-eyed beauty smiled to herself as she envisioned the long, numerous trainings sessions which were in store for the Evangelion pilot. Breaking her would be arduous, perhaps, but it would also be fun.

Before Mayu was through with her, Asuka would no longer be a heterosexual. She wouldn't be a homosexual, either, or even a bisexual. She wouldn't be anything; yet paradoxically, she'd be everything, or more precisely, she'd play any and every role. Neither female or male, she'd be a pansexual, and her partners would be sex toys, animals, men, women, groups, and anyone and anything else that Mayu, with the help of her numerous lovers, could possibly think of. The red-haired woman would be all things to all people, and to some partners that weren't even human. She'd give and take anything anyone wanted to provide or to receive without protest or question. Asuka Langley Soryu, as the rest of the universe knew her, was about to cease to exist.

"As of this moment, you are the property of Kira Yamato." Mayu smiled. "You will obey any order which he gives you. When Kira is not around, you will take orders from myself, or from Cagalli Yula Athha, Hope Yamato, Lacus Clyne or Murrue Ramius."

"This has gone far enough," Asuka argued, suddenly finding her courage. Expecting a slap, she repressed the urge to flinch.

Instead of delivering a stinging slap to Asuka's cheek, Mayu grabbed her by both breasts and squeezed mercilessly. It felt as if the violet-eyed woman were crushing her breasts within her vice-like grip. Mayu, despite her petite size, was strong, much stronger than Asuka had expected. Her long nails pressed hard into the tender flesh of Asuka's breasts, adding to the pain.

"Ow!" Asuka cried, completely unaware that she was now immortal and that her body would regenerate from any injury. "Stop! You're killing me!"

Mayu dug her nails in deeper as she squeezed harder. "What are you?" She demanded, clamping down harder still, her fingernails drawing blood.

"You're going to crush my breasts!" Asuka protested, suppressing a sob.

Mayu released a bit of pressure, only to clench her fists again as hard as she could around Asuka's breasts. Asuka screamed, as much terror as anguish in her cry.

Mayu ignored her. "What are you?" She demanded again.

"I'm the property of Kira Yamato!" Asuka cried.

Mayu relaxed the pressure around Asuka's breasts. "Yes." She agreed. "And you exist to only obey Kira Yamato and his lovers. Say it."

"I exist only to obey Kira Yamato and his lovers." Asuka obediently repeated.

"Repeat it." Mayu demanded.

"I exist only to obey Kira Yamato and his lovers." Asuka said.

"Good. Now, get on your knees." Mayu ordered as she released the red-haired woman's breasts, before then freeing her wrists from their silk restraints and climbing off her.

Asuka obediently climbed off the bed and knelt.

"Turn around." Mayu commanded. "Lean your upper body across the bed. Do it now!"

Asuka faced the bed, leaning her upper body across the mattress. Her buttocks, which like the rest of her body, was fully exposed and seemed completely vulnerable. She wished they were covered. It was embarrassing to have them on display, especially with Misato less than five feet away. In the back of her mind, Asuka wondered why she didn't resist Mayu.

"Don't move." Mayu told her. "Don't even think about moving a single muscle!"

Asuka remained completely motionless. She heard Mayu's footsteps on the floorboards as the violet-eyed woman crossed the room, and then, finally, only the pleasured moans of Misato could be heard as Lacus eagerly thrust her false manhood into the purple-haired womam's dripping slit. Asuka was tempted to look over her shoulder, but she was afraid that the brunette-haired woman might be there, standing directly behind her, and if she disobeyed, there was no telling what Mayu might do.

Finally, Mayu's footsteps were heard again as she once more entered the room, although now, Asuka could also tell that Mayu was dragging something behind her.

"So, you plan to hook Asuka up to one of the vacuum cleaners and milk her for her reproductive fluids?" The voice of Cagalli Yula Athha suddenly spoke up, even as the blonde-haired beauty crawled to the edge of the bed, her soft breasts now dangling directly in front of Asuka's face.

"Yes, I do, Cagalli." Mayu answered, even as she produced a pair of white silk panties and slipped them onto Asuka's legs, before sliding garment up her legs and finally impaling the German girl with the embedded dildo.

"Why don't you ever do things like that to me?" The blonde whimpered. "I've always wanted you to dominate me, Mayu."

"Cagalli, if I even tried to dominate you, Lacus would probably restrain me to one of the electric chairs, impaling me with the metal dildo which is built into the seat, before then turning the power on as high as it could go. I also imagine that if you went along with it, regardless of whether or not you did so willingly, you would probably have to endure another lovemaking session with the circular saw." The violet-eyed beauty shuddered, even as she connected the hose to the dildo embedded within the panties and finally turned the vacuum cleaner on. "She would probably leave us both like that for a few days, too."

"I certainly do enjoy hearing Cagalli scream." Lacus giggled, even as she slowly removed her faux shaft from Misato's dripping womanhood, smiling as the brown-eyed women quickly fell into a peaceful slumber. "And we all know that if I did make her endure another lovemaking session with the circular saw, she'd only beg for more."

"Damn right I would. Oh-ho-ho-ho yeah." Cagalli moaned as she envisioned the event in her mind.

"Lieber Gott..." Asuka quietly said, secretly hoping that her violet-eyed captor wouldn't hear her. Unfortunately for the young red-haired German, she was wrong.

Mayu, having heard Asuka's remark, quickly reached down and grabbed a fist-full of Asuka's crimson strands, before then pulling her upper body back. "Did I say you could speak! Did I!" She yelled.

"N-no mistress." Asuka whimpered.

"It seems my handling of you has been too lenient." Mayu sighed, and without another word, she yanked the still running vacuum from Asuka's slit and tossed her roughly onto the bed, landing right between Cagalli's legs. Cagalli looked down at the young woman with masochistic lust clouding her eyes, even as Mayu grabbed both of Asuka's wrists and placed them behind her back. Mayu then used her hair to bind Asuka's wrists together, before then detaching the hair that was tightly wrapped around her captive's wrists. Asuka moved her head, only to see Cagalli vigorously fingering herself at the display unfolding before her.

"Mayuuuu..." Cagalli whined. "You're killing me here. If you want a willing slave that's what I'm for!"

By this point, Lacus, whom was still straddling Misato's waist, and had busied herself with fondling the woman's breasts to the point where the first squirts of milk were now beginning to seep out, was getting tired of Cagalli's constant whining.

"Cagalli, would you please just shut up before I decide to come over there and rip your vocal cords out!" Lacus fumed. Cagalli quickly shrank back from Mayu, her head drooping as she moved away. _'If you behave, I'll fuck you later, and I'll fuck you so hard that your pelvis breaks and your pussy bleeds.'_ The pink-haired beauty mentally promised.

"Now then, should we take our little red-haired toy to the saw?" Lacus asked, lustful sadism filling her voice.

"Yes, let's." Hope said as she sat up, Murrue moving out from between her legs.

"Alright then." Mayu smiled, as she released Asuka from her bindings. "Come now, my dear. If you do well, I promise you will be rewarded."

Suddenly, the doors hissed open and Kira walked in, with Shiho in tow. "Hello ladies." Kira said as he did a silent head count for all his lovers.

"Hello, Kira." The girls said in unison.

After taking a moment to assess his surroundings, the amethyst-eyed man finally spoke up. "I've been thinking for a while, and I'm considering of having you all wear uniforms, even here in the Inner Sanctum."

"What?" Murrue asked, even as Hope stopped suckling from her breast and sat up to look at their handsome lover, confusion quickly playing its way across the face of every one of the women in the room. "Why on earth would you want us to wear uniforms while we're in the Inner Sanctum?"

"Not normal uniforms." Kira clarified, smiling. "Very special, very sexy uniforms."

This time Lacus spoke up. "But, Kira, the whole purpose of the Inner Sanctum was to have a place to live the sexual nudist lifestyle."

"True, but think about it, this could be a whole new kind of fun for us and it's been years since we found something new." He said.

The other girls thought over the idea for a short time before Hope finally spoke up. "Oh what the hell? I say lets try it, it could be fun." The others soon agreed.

"So, Kira, how was she?" Murrue asked noticing Shiho clinging to Kira's arm and resting her head on his shoulder.

"She looks satisfied." Cagalli quipped, and Kira merely smirked as they both looked at the woman in question.

"She's going to be a fun one, ladies." He answered.

"So, how about our former Nerv personnel?" He asked.

"Misato is quite a woman." Lacus smiled.

"Yeah, but this one needs a little schooling." Mayu said as she pulled Asuka flush against her body.

_'What did you have in mind, Mayu?'_ Kira telepathically asked.

_'The saw.'_ Mayu responded. _'She'll be just as submissive as Cagalli, if not more so, when I'm done with her.'_

Five minutes later the entire group was assembled in the dungeon of the Inner Sanctum. Misato and Shiho were seated in front of the imposing circular saw table with Asuka on her knees facing them. The young German had been gagged to quiet her rebellious protests, while her hands were bound with leather handcuffs.

Off to Asuka's right side, Kira sat on a large couch, with Murrue to his left, and Hope to his right. The amethyst-eyed man had arm draped over each woman's shoulders. On the floor between Kira's legs sat, Cagalli, her arms resting on both of Kira's thighs as all four of them watched the three newcomers. Lacus, Mayu and Lexi stood around the saw.

"Ladies, I'd like to welcome you all to our little playroom." Lacus said after a moment, even as a wide grin spread across her face. She then pointed to the young, red-haired German girl. "What we have here is a naughty girl." The pink-haired beauty smiled as she placed her hand on Asuka's head and shoved her face into the floor, before then pulling her back to her feet by her scalp.

"And everyone knows that naughty girls get punished." Mayu said, even as she and Lacus used their own hair like limbs to lift Asuka and place her onto the large platform of the table saw. Their hair remained wrapped around Asuka's arms and legs until they placed her limbs in their respective shackles. Asuka struggled and pulled frantically at her restraints.

For the first time in many years, she was genuinely scared and the device she was currently strapped to was not helping matters. The saw blade was a large circular blade, one which looked as if it had been chromed and polished clean. The table itself, however, had dried blood spattered all over it. Undoubtedly belonging to Cagalli.

It was then that Mayu faced the two other women as they continued watching the whole endeavor before them. "Let this be a demonstration of one of the many things that can happen if you decide to misbehave." With that, Mayu pressed the large red 'START' button, and the blade began to spin up to speed. Asuka's muffled cries could be heard as she continued to strain at her bindings.

"Asuka, relax." Lacus said, her voice calm and soothing. The voice that made men cheer and women, both straight and lesbian, swoon for her. "You'll enjoy it, I promise. And with the drug coursing through your veins, you will feel only pure euphoria." With that the platform with Asuka atop began to inch closer to the spinning blade. Instantly, the blue-eyed beauty began thrashing about as best she could despite the restraints, watching as the menacing, spinning blade inched ever closer to the delicate folds between her legs, her eyes wide with primal fear.

_'No! Oh god, no!'_ Asuka thought as she began to feel the wind from the blade teasingly wisp over her womanhood. Asuka had just enough time to look at Lacus and to see that sadistic smile of hers, just as the spinning blade touched her flesh. Asuka's entire body jerked in a mix of intense pain and euphoric pleasure. A loud but muffled scream tore from the young woman's throat as the blade ripped her clitoris from her body, crimson blood coating the blade and spraying over her body.

Mayu looked down at Asuka and found that the young woman had passed out from her experience. The violet-eyed woman looked over to Lacus who merely nodded. With their point effectively made, the two goddesses turned off the saw just as it was about to rip past Asuka's cervix. Lacus released the shackles binding the girl and called the other two new comers over. "Don't be shy, ladies. Have a look."

Both Misato and Shiho stood up and walked over to the blood spattered table. In the back of her mind, Misato didn't want to see what they had done to her former ward, but something willed her body to move closer. What the two women saw both shocked and amazed them; the deep wound in Asuka's nether regions was rapidly healing before their very eyes. Veins reconnected and muscle tissue weaved back together before, finally, the skin closed itself like a gory zipper.

At this point, Kira stood from the couch and made a few claps of his hands. "Now then ladies, let us all head down to the residential deck so you can pick your outfits." Before they left, Lacus walked over to Misato and wrapped her arms around the former NERV operations chief's slender waist. "Remember that kiss we shared up in the top observation deck, Misato?" She asked in a seductive tone.

"Do I ever." Misato answered with a smile. Lacus returned the smile while running the tips of her fingers slowly up Misato's back.

"Let's do it again some time." Lacus said in a husky voice.

"Any time." Misato whispered. Lacus just giggled as she and Misato followed the others as they left the dungeon level. Before leaving himself, Kira walked over to Asuka and scooped up her slumbering form.

"My, she's a light one." He said as he got into the large elevator with the others.

"Nein nicht-!" Asuka exclaimed as her eyes shot open a few minutes later. Panting heavily, the young woman looked around herself, quickly realizing that she was no longer in the dungeon nor was she chained to the table saw, but laying on a large bed covered in satin sheets. _'The saw!'_ She thought, quickly tossing away the blankets covering her nudity. She looked down at herself and found that she was completely unhurt, with no markings of scars or anything that shouldn't be there. _'What a nightmare.'_ She thought. Just then, Asuka heard distant giggles and chattering coming from an adjoining room. Not even bothering to cover herself, Asuka got up and walked across the carpeted floor towards the source of the noise.

Unlike the vast majority of the Excalibur, with its cold, sterile, militaristic feel. The decks of the Inner Sanctum were made to resemble a high-class condominium, with painted wood and sheetrock walls covering the thick metal bulkheads, wooden doors and thick carpeting.

Asuka rounded a corner to find all of the other girls standing in a large walk-in closet, looking at various dresses, holding them up to each other and themselves, all the while chatting about their various likes and dislikes about each of the outfits.

After a few minutes, Shiho finally spotted Asuka standing in the doorway in stunned silence. "Ah, the sleeping beauty wakes." The violet-eyed woman quipped as she walked over the young red-head. "Come in come in." Shiho said enthusiastically as she took Asuka's hand and pulled her into the large room.

"Where the hell are we?" Asuka asked, still in a slight state of shock.

"Oh, this is just one of the closets that the girls and I use." Murrue explained while she held a dress in front of herself and looked into the large full-body mirror.

"A closet?" Asuka parroted. "Intz. Um Gottes Willen! This is as big as one of those stores you would find in a large retail mall." She said, taking in the sight of the 10-foot wide by 15-foot long room.

"Oh, come now, Asuka, just look around." Cagalli said as she slipped out of a dress that didn't quite fit her. "You may find something you like."

"Hey Cagalli, what is that?" Asuka asked.

"What's what?" Cagalli said turning to the young German.

"That mark on your ass." Asuka pointed to Cagalli's left butt cheek showing the letters 'L.C.' tattooed on her creamy flesh.

"Oh that's-" Cagalli started before being interrupted by Lacus.

"That's my mark." She explained. "It's to show just who owns this fine ass of hers." She said bringing her hand down in a loud smack to prove her point.

"Oooh, Lacus please not in front of the child." Cagalli said in a lustful voice.

"Later then, babe." Lacus said as she went back to finding her perfect dress.

Asuka just shrugged as walked over to one of the racks of numerous outfits. After browsing through their massive collection of clothing, each of the seven women had found something they liked.

Lacus had found a simple silk Japanese-style kimono. The main body was a dark brown color, with an intricate floral pattern, while the thick cuffs and full trim were formed out of a 3-inch wide strip of pink silk that had a slight gloss.

Murrue had found an elegant silk dress that flowed with every move she made. The dress was a royal blue color with a slight gloss to it. It was accented with small silver sequins running out from her waist around to the back of the dress just below the backless cut and up the two spaghetti straps draped over her shoulders. Down the front of the dress was a deep V-cut that extended all the way down her sizable cleavage, stopping at a point just below her navel.

Hope wore a strapless red dress that hugged her curves before flowing out into a wide red silk and white lace mix, cascading down to the floor. A simple white floral pattern embroidered over her waist and up to her right breast completed her choice.

Mayu had gone for a floor-length, dark blue dress with a strapless, backless design. The dress had a large V-cut in the front over the young woman's ample chest, accented with a large amethyst gem nestled at the point of the 'V' between her breasts. The entire dress had been designed to look as if several strips of silken fabric had been tightly interwoven and stitched together, giving it a unique, layered look.

Cagalli found what was essentially a silk duplicate of her Orb Union Chief Representative uniform, with the only real difference being that the uniform she currently wore sported a floor-length dress in place of the normal pants.

Shiho had found a dress somewhat similar to Murrue's own. However, unlike Murrue's dress, Shiho's dress was crafted out of gold silk and was accented with small silver sequins running along the V-cut in the front, only to stop just below her waist.

Misato had decided upon a reletively simple floor-length dress crafted from violet silk, with pink and blue accents along the front and sides.

Asuka had chosen a bright crimson dress crafted of the finest silk and trimmed with gold, which fell to her ankles. The dress had two small diamond-shaped cutouts, one over her belly button, and another in between her breasts, both of them trimmed with gold. Over the dress, the blue-eyed beauty had donned a tan overcoat, which had small diamond-shaped patches of crimson covering her elbows, and a black strip, trimmed with gold over her waist.

"So, what do you think, Kira?" Murrue asked, as the man in question walked into the huge closet and his eyes fell upon the seven beautiful women.

"Incredible." Kira quietly answered, blushing slightly. "What about your hair though?"

"What do you mean?" Lacus asked, a seductive smile slowly playing across her face.

"He's probably referring to the fact that we haven't yet freed our hair from our within our dresses." Cagalli giggled, even as the seven beautiful women began to move in perfect unison, gently slipping their left arm between their hair and the back of their neck.

Kira could only watch in silent awe as the group of amazingly beautiful women gave a single tug on their silken tresses, freeing their soft manes from within their dresses, the soft locks of the seven women seeming to fly out from within the backs of the dreses before then cascading elegantly behind them. While Cagalli, Hope, Lacus, Mayu, Murrue and Shiho's hair fell to their ankles, Asuka and Misato's tresses only fell to the small of their backs.

_'I'll have to lengthen Asuka and Misato's hair at some point.'_ Kira thought to himself as he walked over to the group of beautiful women.


	87. Skin Strip

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 87**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

**Warning:** This chapter contains an extreme lemon, and is not suitable for anyone under the age of 18.

* * *

Cagalli Yula Athha was now wearing a silky, custom-made variation of the standard Orb Union Chief Representative uniform as she silently stood on the small stage located in the Inner Sanctum's dungeon. The golden-eyed beauty was currently preparing to perform a very special dance, one which she had first developed nearly a decade earlier, in an attempt to satiate Lacus Clyne's more sadistic nature, a dance known as the Skin Strip.

The only people whom would even be present for this very special live performance, were those that were allowed access to the Inner Sanctum, or more specifically Cagalli's nine lovers; Kira Yamato, Asuka Langley Soryu, Hope Yamato, Lacus Clyne, Lexi Yamato, Mayu Asuka, Misato Katsuragi, Murrue Ramius, and Shiho Hahnenfuss. Despite the very small crowd, Cagalli was incredibly nervous., even though she was using some of her more divine abilities to effectively immobilize everyone present, with the only exception being Lacus.

Unlike the standard Orb Union Chief Representative uniform, the one that Cagalli currently wore completely lacked pants of any kind, instead having a skirt in their place. The skirt itself was fairly short, barely managing to cover Cagalli's white silk panties, and showing most of her thighs, which were covered by white silk stockings. A pair of white high heeled shoes adorned her feet. Her soft golden-blonde hair, which currently fell to her ankles, was tied back into a tight ponytail by a single ribbon of gold silk. She looked like a very successful business women, which she was. During her extremely long life she had amounted quite a large sum of money, but she had also gained a very good reputation for her excellent dance performances, both inside and outside of the Inner Sanctum, and this one would definitely be her most memorable performance to date.

The outline of both of Cagalli's nipples could barely be seen through the fabric covering them. As if to tease her small crowd, she seductively caressed herself from top to bottom, starting by sensually caressing her own neck, slowly sliding downwards towards her soft breasts, and when her hands arrived at her breasts, she stopped there for a while. With her hands on her breasts and holding them tightly, she bounced them a little by pushing them up and down with her hands. After a moment, her hands continued downwards, teasingly touching her belly before eventually reaching the entrance to her womanhood.

Cagalli slowly rubbed her vaginal lips through her panties, before finally increasing the speed of her teasing fingers. She then turned around and showed her ass cheeks, touching her buttocks with her hands before gently spanking them, and then pulling away the skirt, which happened to be blocking the view to her beautiful behind, then she stood up straight and whirled off her jacket, sending it fluttering to the side. The silk of her shirt was very thin and didn't hide much, especially since her bra could easily be seen through it. The bra itself was of the finest silk and pure white, with many golden frills covering her big, bouncy breasts. Cagalli smiled as her left hand reached up to grasp the ribbon holding her hair in place, and with a sudden tug, she freed her golden locks from the ponytail, sending the silken tresses cascading down her back like a waterfall, allowing them to frame her lovely face. Her lips were moist and she had her left hand rubbing her vaginal lips again, while the right hand was rubbing her breasts through the bra. Ten seconds later, she slid her right hand down behind her back and dropped her skirt, revealing her perfect legs, which were covered in a pair of sexy stockings.

After a few more bounces with her hips, she started to play with her bra, and when she unhooked it, she teased everyone by holding her breasts with her hands, but finally, she revealed the two large, pink nipples, both of them fully erect and leaking a small amount of milk. Cagalli stepped back and did a perfect somersault followed by a split, her beautiful breasts bouncing wildly, while her soft tresses trailed behind her like hundreds of golden streamers during the spectacular demonstration of her athletic abilities, and then she spun her legs around, rolled onto her back and jumped back to her feet, all of this in less than three seconds. While she was in mid-jump, the golden-eyed beauty had ripped off her panties and kicked off her heels before landing on the floor.

As her panties fluttered to the floor, Cagalli picked up her ceremonial knife. This blade was very special to the golden-eyed woman, not only had it been designed by her lover; Lacus Clyne, but the pink-haired beauty had also demanded, under no uncertain terms, that Cagalli only use the blade when performing the Skin Strip. The dagger was very ornately designed and was highly remenicent of the 1803 Napoleonic Ceremonial Dagger. The blade of the weapon was not only double-edged, but also possessed a beam blade, the physical blade was engraved with the words 'Goddess of Victory', a nickname which Cagalli had first received millenia ago, while fighting in the deserts of Africa. The handle of the dagger was polished mother of pearl, with the head of a roaring lioness sculpted into it. Just below the hilt of the blade were Cagalli's initials of 'C. Y. A.', which were covered in gold leaf. The golden-haired beauty was now clad in nothing but her stockings, her eyes brightly sparkling as she picked up a bottle of body oil.

Cagalli slowly flicked the knife around with one hand, the other one holding the bottle as she slipped the knife into her dripping womanhood; the mere sight of the blonde-haired beauty inserting the blade into her vaginal opening was enough to cause Lacus to reach an instantaneous climax. Cagalli was now holding the blade inside her womanhood with her vaginal muscles. While standing in this position, she used her hands to apply the oil to her whole body. She squirted the oil onto her shoulders first, letting it drip down to the rest of her body before then squirting it onto her breasts and stomach, and then her back, holding the bottle over her shoulders. Finally, she dropped the bottle and began to gently massage her breasts. After a moment, her hands left her breasts and started to massage her stomach, before then moving around to rub as much of her back as she could reach. Once again, her hands went up to her oil soaked shoulders and massaged more of the slippery liquid into her hands, she then massaged her left arm followed by the right arm. Her entire upper body now glistered, and she turned to her ass cheeks and gently rubbed them until they too shone with reflected light.

Now her right hand went forward again and grabbed the hilt of the knife. Slowly she pulled it back out of her vaginal entrance, completely ignoring the few drops of blood that were dribbling down between her legs. Cagalli was now holding the knife high above her head in her right hand, and after a few seconds, she lifted her left arm to her shoulders, even as her right arm moved the knife to her left shoulder and gently rested the blade against the soft skin there. She smiled in masochistic pleasure as she slowly sliced the skin from her left shoulder, dragging the razor-sharp blade down to her left hand. Her entire left arm was covered in blood following this perfectly executed step. The strip of skin that she had just cut off fell onto a mattress on the floor in front of her. She was in pain, but still managed to keep on smiling and moved the knife to her left hand, she then she did the same thing to her right arm. In a strange way, it was very seductive.

She then bent backwards, placing the blade behind the ankle on her right foot, and then she sliced upwards, slicing along her thigh until she reached her buttocks, where she stopped and bent back down to cut the other side. Two red lines could be seen on the back of her long legs. Her attention then went back to her front side.

Her breasts were next, she placed the knife under her left breast and carefully cut around it, separating the breast skin from the boundaries of her chest, and then she pulled off the entirety of the skin covering her breast. Her left breast was now totally skinless and bright red. She did the same thing to her right breast. She now had two bright red and skinless breasts.

Next she made incisions around her hips and at the top of her buttocks, then she pulled the skin off of her behind and flung it onto the mat in front of her, adding it to the rest of her cut off skin. Her ass was now bright red, as if she had just finished receiving a very cruel spanking.

Cagalli was now holding the knife with both of her hands, and her entire body was shaking terribly. Despite being immortal, most of Cagalli's energy had left her, and she knew that she wasn't going to last much longer without allowing her regenerative abilities to repair at least some of the damage she had done. Holding the knife in front of her, she went down on her knees and plunged the blade into her heart. She was in terrible agony and the intense pain could be clearly seen on her face as tears steadily slipped out of her eyes, but even so, she stood up in order to perform the final act of the Skin Strip.

"Don't even think about regeneratng, Cagalli." Lacus suddenly said, even as she stood up and walked over to her golden-eyed lover.

"W-what?" Cagalli asked, holding back the urge to scream in pain. "W-why?"

"Because I want to fuck you." Lacus answered, her beautiful blue eyes now completely glazed over with pure lust as she firmly grasped the handle of the knife with her right hand, her thumb hovering teasingly, yet threateningly, over the switch which would activate the beam blades. "This is only one of the many reasons as to why I love you so much." The pink-haired woman continued, seductively smiling. "Not only are you able to skin yourself alive, but you do it willingly, all in an attempt to satisfy my more sadistic desires."

"Lacus!" Cagalli cried out in machoistic bliss as her blue-eyed lover instantly extended her silken pink tresses to twenty feet in length, before then using the soft locks to gently embrace her golden-eyed lover's body, the beautiful locks quickly turning a bright crimson as they began to soak up Cagalli's blood.

"Don't worry, Cagalli." Lacus cooed. "I promise that by the time I'm done with you, you'll be screaming in pleasure, not pain." With that, the blue-eyed beauty quickly vanished into a nearby closet, only to return a moment later, now with a one-inch thick, five-inch long, double-ended dildo strapped to her body.

Without any warning, Lacus suddenly shoved Cagalli roughly against the wall, eliciting another painful scream from the blonde-haired woman's lips. The pink-haired beauty was quick to silence her golden-eyed lover, however, as she pressed a deep and passionate kiss to her lips, while simultaniously burying the thick dildo within Cagalli's soft vaginal folds.

"L-Lacus." Cagalli panted, her voice a mix of pain and pleasure, as the pink-haired beauty eagerly thrust the faux shaft repeatedly into her tight womanhood. What the golden-eyed beauty failed to notice however, was that Lacus had freed the knife from her still-beating heart, and slid the tip of the blade down her body, stopping over her lower abdomen.

Suddenly, Cagalli felt a white-hot, searing pain in her lower abdomen as Lacus suddenly began to sink the blade of the dagger into the blonde-haired woman's soft flesh.

"AYYYYYEEEEE! DON'T DO THAAAAAT!" Cagalli shrieked, jerking away from Lacus, desprately trying to scramble out from under her lover's body. Her pulse pounded and her mind was instantly captured in sheer terror. Lacus merely laughed and jumped after her, pinning her down, still with her abdomen fully exposed.

"No need to jump out of your skin, Cagalli." Lacus grinned. "I just want to feel around inside of your sexy gut for a minute."

"NO, LACUS! EVEN I CAN'T STAND THAT MUCH PAIN! I'M BEGGING YOU! PLEASE DON'T!" Cagalli's resistance only seemed to excite her pink-haired lover. She held the golden-eyed beauty down with the weight of her body. Once again her abdomen exploded into wave after wave of blinding pain. Then she let out a loud, animalistic shriek as the beam blades flashed to life and the cold metal finally pierced her skin and sank into her tender intestine.

"AIIIEEEEEEE!" Cagalli shrieked again. She went berserk then. Half out of her mind in panic, she fought Lacus furiously until, finally, the blade was gone. Even though the cold metal of the blade was gone, the pain was still there and it had left a three-inch long incision in her belly.

"Come on, Cagalli." Lacus purred. "Let me play with your insides."

"NOOO!" She got free of Lacus and fled into the adjacent bedroom, sobbing in fright, pain and anger, even as her body quickly repaired all the damage that had been done. She would take almost anything from her pink-haired lover because, long ago, she had settled into a reletively submissive lifestyle, but even Cagalli Yula Athha had her limits. After lying on the bed, sobbing uncontrollably for nearly five minutes, the golden-haired woman finally fell into a restless slumber.

"Cagalli?" Lacus quietly asked as she kneeled next to the bed where her blonde-haired lover was sleeping. "Wake up, darling."

Cagalli's golden eyes, still rimmed with unshed tears, slowly fluttered open. After a moment of tense silence, the blonde-haired woman finally spoke as she rose to a sitting position, her voice laced with anger. "What do you want, Lacus?"

"I'm so sorry for what I tried to do to you earlier." Lacus sniffled, tears streaming from her cerulean blue eyes.

"That's a load of crap." Cagalli shot back, her own golden eyes sparkling with barely contained anger. "You wanted to slice my belly open and play with my intestines."

"Cagalli, please!" Lacus cried. "I love you!"

"Then why did you try to do that?" The blonde snarled. "Why did you try to slice me open and play with my internal organs?"

"I'm a sadist, Cagalli!" Lacus sobbed, pausing to wipe some of the tears away from her eyes. "And as a sadist, I derive sexual gratification from physically or emotionally hurting those I love. You know that!"

"And I'm a masochist." Cagalli nodded. "But, just because I tend to derive sexual gratification from being hurt physically or emotionally, it doesn't mean that I want you to slice me open and play with, or even mastrabate on, my internal organs!"

After a few seconds of complete silence, Cagalli finally got off the bed and rose to her feet. An instant later, faster than even Lacus could react, Cagalli had lashed out at her, delivering a bone-shattering kick to her jaw, the blow sending the pink-haired beauty flying backwards and slamming into the wall, even as her shattered jawbone regenerated, instantly repairing the damage that had been done. Lacus whimpered loudly as Cagalli caught her by the throat and pinned her against the wall, but she didn't fail to notice that her lover wasn't gripping her throat tight enough to disable her ability to speak, only tight enough to be uncomfortable.

As she held Lacus against the wall, Cagalli's golden eyes traveled over the pink-haired woman's body, noticing that she now wore a black kimono that was crafted of the finest silk and accented with purple and pink trim.

"Where the hell did you get that outfit?" Cagalli quietly growled, her anger still slowly rising.

"I've always had this outfit." Lacus whimpered.

Cagalli glared into her lover's beautiful blue eyes for a long moment, before finally letting her go, causing her to fall to the floor in a heap, her silken pink tresses, which extended for nearly two miles, quickly spilling onto the floor around her. Lacus now lay on the floor, quietly sniffling, too scared to move. After a moment, Cagalli scowled as she reached towards Lacus, grabbing a large handful of her pink mane and dragging her, kicking and screaming, out of the room.

_'Cagalli, let her go!'_ The mental voice of Hope Yamato suddenly yelled within the confines of blonde-haired woman's mind. Acting mostly on instinct, Cagalli quickly did as she was told, letting go of her lover's pink tresses and moving away from the blue-eyed woman's shivering body. _'Both of you, come to the Inner Sanctum's third floor and meet me in the walk-in closet.'_

When Cagalli and Lacus walked into the huge closet a few minutes later, they saw the others were eagerly browsing their massive collection of various uniforms, even though the other seven girls had already picked out their own outfits.

Misato had found, much to her surprise; a silk version of her Nerv formal dress. The outfit itself was crafted of black silk, in addition, this incarnation of her formal uniform had a removable floor-length dress and completely lacked breast cups, allowing her massive bust to be seen by all.

Asuka had also been quite surprised by what she had found; a silk version of the test plugsuit which she had worn during the failed activation of Evangelion Unit 03, an event which had ended in disaster. Other than the fact that it was made of silk, the outfit was exactly identical to the original test plugsuit. The red-haired beauty had also privately decided upon a second outfit, which, like the first, was a perfect duplicate of her test plugsuit, not only was this second incarnation made of silk, but it also had a removable floor-length dress.

Shiho had found a black, single-piece, skin-tight swimsuit, which like all of the other outfits, was made out of the finest silk, lacked breast cups, and had a removable floor-length dress.

Murrue had an outfit similar to Shiho's own. Murrue's dress, unlike Shiho's own, was black and pink, instead of just being one color, but like Shiho's dress, it also lacked breast cups and had a removable floor-length dress.

Hope had picked a dress crafted of violet silk, one which hugged her curves, similar to the attire picked by the others, Hope's outfit left her ample breasts completely exposed and included a removable floor-length dress.

Mayu had decided upon a dress very similar to Hope's own, although hers was crafted of blue silk instead of violet silk, and just like the attire picked by the other women, Mayu's outfit also left her ample breasts completely exposed and included a removable floor-length dress.

Cagalli had been quick to find what was essentially a massively altered duplicate of her Orb Union Chief Representative uniform. Unlike the more casual version that she had picked out earlier, this one left the entirety of her chest and breasts completely exposed, in addition the uniform, like those of the others, sported a floor-length dress in place of the normal pants.


	88. The Extent of True Love

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 88**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

**Author's Note:** 164 decillion = 164 with 33 zeros after it, or 164,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

**Warning:** This chapter contains an extreme lemon, and is not suitable for anyone under the age of 18.

* * *

"Are the three of you absolutely sure that you want to know the true extent of Kira's long hair fetish?" Lexi Yamato asked as she stood in front of Asuka Langley Soryu, Misato Katsuragi and Shiho Hahnenfuss.

"Yes, Lexi." Asuka answered, with a hint of annoyance in her voice. "All three of us want to know the true extent of Kira's long hair fetish."

"Don't get snippy with me, young lady." Lexi replied, glaring heatedly into Asuka's beautiful blue eyes. "I just wanted to make sure."

At that moment, Kira and Yumi walked into the room, and while Kira was completely nude, Yumi's body was covered by a pair of soft, feathery, white wings. In addition to the angel-like wings, she now possessed a five-foot long tail, which sprouted out from just above her shapely bottom. The thick layer of hair that covered Yumi's tail was a perfect match for the silken tresses which had been drawn into a tight ponytail and cascaded down her back before finally stopping at her ankles. Like the hair on her scalp, the hair covering her tail was primarily brunette, but the soft tresses also posessed blonde and pink highlights throughout their length.

After a few seconds of silence, Yumi uncovered herself, slowly spreading her wings and revealing her naked body. Asuka, Misato and Shiho could only watch in stunned silence as the wings slowly opened to their full span, nearly ten feet from tip to tip, even as more feathers scattered around her.

Yumi smiled as she slowly revealed herself. She, like Kira, was completely naked, with only her soft hair covering her neatly shaven womanhood and nipples. Before the three women could say anything, Yumi grinned as she utilized her abilities to instantly lengthen her beautiful locks. In the blink of an eye, Yumi's silken tresses had gone from being only ankle-length, to extending for twenty feet.

Suddenly, without any warning, Yumi grabbed Kira's shoulders and pushed herself tightly against him, pressing her lips into his. Kira felt Yumi force his mouth open as she pushed him over to the bed, she then pushed him down onto the bed and straddled his waist, even as her tongue dug hungrily into his mouth, exploring every inch.

Yumi smiled as she broke the kiss a moment later. Her beautiful twenty-foot long hair had come out of its ponytail when she had forced Kira onto the bed and he was now slowly running his hands through it, but she pretended not to notice.

Yumi's hair felt so smooth and soft as Kira ran his hands through it. Yumi sighed in contentment as her silken strands fell over her chest, the soft locks cascading off the edge of the bed before finally spilling across her toes and collecting on the floor, it was a feeling she knew she would never tire of.

Yumi smiled as she walked over to a nearby counter and picked up the paddle brush in her right hand, then she slowly pulled the mass of her silky hair around in front of her with her left and started to carefully brush it. She slowly brought the brush down through her hair, her left hand following, as she had done countless times before. She reached down as far as she could, and then started again, slowly, lovingly.

"I have a feeling that you have something fun in mind." Kira blushed as he sat on the edge of the bed.

Yumi smiled sweetly, nodding as she set the hairbrush back down on the counter. "Yes, I did."

Kira blushed, and looked expectantly at Yumi, eager to hear what she had planned, but instead of answering him, Yumi walked into the closet. The amethyst-eyed man arched an eyebrow a moment later, when Yumi finally emerged from the closet, now carrying what appeared to be a transparent flight suit in her arms and smiling sweetly as she walked past Kira and into the bathroom.

After a moment, Yumi walked back out of the bathroom, now dressed in the flight suit, but unknown to Kira, there was a small hose attached to the back of the flight suit, which was connected to a large vat of molten chocolate. Yumi sighed happily as a stream of warm liquid chocolate began to flow into the flight suit. Kira's eyes widened as he realized that his beautiful lover was going to encase her body in chocolate, completely immobilizing herself and allowing him to have his way with her, until he either ate all of the chocolate which surrounded her body, or until the chocolate melted.

After five minutes, the suit had been completely filled with the warm molten chocolate, and Kira watched as the hose which had been pumping the warm liquid into the suit detached automatically as the suit instantly sealed itself.

Ten minutes later, Yumi smiled at Kira as she finally spoke up. "Kira, the chocolate is completely solidified now, and as soon as you take this suit off of me, we can start to have some real fun."

Kira blushed slightly as he walked up to Yumi and carefully began to remove the suit, slowly revealing his lover's perfect body, which was now covered up to the neck with a three-inch thick layer of solid chocolate, the sugary concoction perfectly mimicking the contours of Yumi's body.

After simply savoring the image of Yumi's body, completely encased and immobilized as it was, the amethyst-eyed man smirked as he kneeled in front of Yumi's chocolate-coated form and began to eagerly lap at the sugary treat concealing his lover's entrance.

"Why are you teasing me like this?" Yumi whined, her voice laced with frustration.

"I need to go slower than normal because of the four newcomers, Yumi." Kira replied, stopping only long enough to gaze up into his wife's beautiful eyes.

A few agonizingly long moments later, Yumi let out a gasp of pleasure as Kira's warm tongue finally broke through the layer of chocolate covering her womanhood.

"K-Kira!" Yumi cried out, her tail furiously whipping through the air, as her handsome husband continued to eagerly lick her vaginal lips, driving her to ever higher levels of sexual pleasure.

Suddenly, a blinding flash of light filled the room, and when it finally faded, Asuka, Kira, Lexi, Misato and Shiho were treated to the sight of Yumi standing only a few feet in front of them, still completely encased in solid chocolate, with her soft, furry tail and feathery, angelic wings fully entended, but hanging limply from her backside. Yumi's beautiful hair, which now extended for 164 decillion cubic light-years, cascaded down her back like a silken waterfall before then extending for as far as the eye could see.

The four newcomers to the harem, having no idea what had just happened, quickly looked around, noticing that the room which they were now in greatly resembeled the salon within the Inner Sanctum, complete with nine salon chairs, as well as with mirrors, counters, any and all necessary combs, brushes, and sprays, not to mention five wet/dry shop vacuums, a trio of upright vacuums and an extremely large bathtub/shower where hair could be washed and shampooed. As the four women continued to look around, they noticed that the floor of the huge room consisted mostly of white tile, but none of them failed to notice the large bed off to their right, which sat on a beautiful gold and silver rug.

"What the hell?" Asuka asked as she finally laid her beautiful blue eyes on Yumi, or more specifically, on her soft, brunette tresses, which elegantly trailed behind her for as far as the red-haired girl could see. "Lexi, exactly how long is Yumi's hair?"

"Yumi's hair currently extends for 164 decillion light-years, enough hair to completely fill the entire universe." Lexi answered, the tone in her voice making it sound as though it was a completely normal length, as she walked over to Yumi and began to gently run a hand through her silken locks. "And now, the three of you know the true extent of Kira Yamato's long hair fetish." The holographic beauty smiled, even as she continued to gently run her hand through Yumi's brunette strands. "Kira's long hair fetish doesn't have any limits."

"What exactly is that supposed to mean?" Misato spoke up, her brown eyes widening.

"It means just what you think, Misato." Lexi answered. "No matter how long you were to make your hair, Kira would never be truly satisfied."

"Wait a minute." Asuka scowled, a tone of slight anger seeping into her voice. "So, you're telling us that Kira will never really love us, no matter how long we make our hair?"

"Asuka, I do love you." Kira answered, turning to look at the red-haired beauty. "I love all of you, and nothing will change that." The amethyst-eyed man glanced at Lexi for a few short seconds, before once again looking at Asuka and continuing. "What Lexi was trying to say was that my long hair fetsh is so strong that it will never be fully satiated."

"W-what?" Asuka asked, shock obvious in her tone of voice, even as Kira walked over to her, gently embraced her and finally laid his head on her shoulder.

As the amethyst-eyed man rested his head on Asuka's shoulder he scowled slightly upon seeing the red-haired woman's thoughts, or more specifically, the thoughts regarding his long hair fetish. "So, you think that my long hair fetish is pointless and stupid, do you?"

An instant later, the solid chocolate shell surrounding Yumi's body suddenly vanished, freeing her. Instead of lunging at Kira, however, she simply moved to stand beside him, glaring at Asuka.

_'It's funny how these people talk about long hair and short hair, since their frame of reference is so incredibly skewed.'_ Asuka continued her current train of thought, not really caring if Kira or the others were still reading her mind. _'They're quite content to refer to anything less than ankle-length hair as short, while just about everybody else would consider ankle-length tresses impossibly long.'_

"I think it's time that you learned to appricate Kira's long hair fetish." Yumi said, a sadistic smile crossing her face, even as a blindingly bright white light surrounded her body.

When the light faded a moment later, Yumi was no longer there, instead, Cagalli, Hope, Lacus, Mayu and Murrue stood in her place. Asuka's cobalt blue eyes widened at what she saw, each of the five women, despite no longer being merged, still possessed hair which trailed elegantly behind them and extended far beyond what the eye could see.

"Why do you insist on delaying the inevitable, Asuka?" Misato finally spoke up.

"Because it's stupid!" Asuka yelled, turning to look at the purple-haired woman, only to see that Misato's own tresses, along with those of Shiho, extended for further than the eye could see.

"If Kira's long hair fetish is so stupid, why have both Misato and Shiho accepted it so willingly?" Hope smirked.

"You people and that stupid hair!" Asuka fumed. "It's just in the way. I think you should cut it." Kira and his lovers were completely stunned by Asuka's outburst. It was Lacus who recovered and responded first, grabbing Asuka by the neck and slamming her against the nearby shower door, the impact causing the glass to shatter. Lacus didn't hesitate, instead she continued charging forward and finally slammed the red-haired woman against the wall.

"How dare you?!" Lacus yelled, even as the ends of her soft pink mane snaked their way to her and quickly formed themselves into a razor-sharp blade a foot in length and two inches wide. "I should slaughter and gut you like a pig." She snarled, the tip of the pink blade gently pressing against Asuka's neck, although not exerting enough pressure to break the skin.

"Lacus, don't." Cagalli said, even as she reached out with her golden tresses, gently wrapping them around her lover's own pink locks and pulling them away from Asuka's neck. "Let's let her suffer with her pathetically short hair." The golden-eyed beauty sadistically grinned, even as she gently took Lacus's hand into her own and led her lover out of the shower, before then utilizing her abilities to repair the damage to the glass door.

Without another word to Asuka, Lacus and Cagalli moved towards Kira, quickly taking his hands into their own and leading him towards the row of salon chairs. After a few seconds, another blinding flash of light lit the area as Cagalli, Hope, Lacus, Mayu, Murrue, and this time, Misato and Shiho, merged to once again form Yumi.

As Yumi patiently sat in the salon chair, Kira walked to the counter in front of the chair in which she was seated and picked up a hairbrush, before then producing a clear vacuum hose from just beneath the mirror. The amethyst-eyed man smiled happily as he then walked behind Yumi, quickly gathering her luxurious hair into a ponytail and gently tugging on it, since it had been caught between the back of the chair and Yumi's body.

Kira couldn't help but grin slightly as he attached the hairbrush to the end of the vacuum hose. Even from where she sat on the floor of the shower, Asuka saw that the attachment was actually a cleverly designed round, vented hairbrush, and that the hair would actually be sucked into the vents on the brush, before then being sucked directly into the vacuum hose itself. In addition, the hairbrush itself could also spin at varying speeds while the handle would remian stationary, making the task easier than it might normally be.

_'W-why am I the only one being left out?'_ Asuka thought to herself as she silently sat on the floor of the shower, her mental voice full of bewilderment. _'Even with those seven merged together into a single body and mind, I'm obviously much more beautiful and intelligent.'_

"Asuka, I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, but unless you completely accept Kira and his lovers as they are, you'll always be left out." Lexi said, as her holographic image appeared in front of the blue-eyed beauty.

"What, why?" Asuka asked, even as tears began to slowly slip from her eyes.

"Kira and his lovers are very stringent and unyielding when it comes to the fulfillment of their fantasies and fetishes." Lexi answered, glancing over her shoulder at Kira as he continued to lovingly brush Yumi's silken tresses.

"They're all insane." Asuka muttered, shoving Lexi out of the way, exiting the shower and marching over to Kira.

"Have you finally come to your senses, Asuka?" The amethyst-eyed man calmly asked, without pausing in his gentle brushing of Yumi's hair.

"You're the one who needs to come to their senses." Asuka responded, placing her hands on his shoulders and shoving him against the wall. "There's so much more to a woman than her hair." The blue-eyed beauty smiled, before then forcibly planting a searing kiss on Kira's lips, causing him to drop the hairbrush, even as it continued to spin, gently brushing Yumi's silken tresses while the powerful suction from the vacuum drew her soft strands into the brush, the hose it was attached to, and finally into the vacuum cleaner itself.

Standing at the same 5'7" height as her lover, Kira Yamato, Yumi had long brunette hair, occasionally accented with natural highlights of blonde and pink, that cascaded down her back like a silken waterfall before then trailing elegantly behind her for further than the eye could see, with her bangs swept down over her forehead. Yumi's left eye was a dark amber color, a combination of Cagalli's, Misato's and Murrue's eye colors, while her right eye was a deep bluish-purple, a combination of Hope's, Lacus's, Mayu's and Shiho's eye colors. Her 32, E-cup measurements only served to enhance her already beautiful body.

Kira instantly froze as Asuka finally broke the kiss, nearly a full minute later. Yumi's eyes were narrowed in a mix of jealousy and frustration, and it was plainly clear that she was very displeased with Asuka's interruption.

Before the red-haired beauty could continue to seduce Kira, she suddenly found herself unable to move, as Yumi had instantly embraced everything below Asuka's neck within the vice-like grip of her silken tresses, only leaving the young woman's breasts and vaginal lips uncovered.

"W-what the hell?" Asuka shouted, only to be silenced as Kira forced a clear hose, which was actually a custom-made gag, into her mouth, and quickly fastened the straps behind her head, before them securing them with a large padlock, ensuring that the red-haired woman wouldn't be able to remove the gag by herself.

"So, what should we do with her?" Yumi asked.

"First and foremost, I want to make these beautiful red tresses of hers longer." Kira anwsered as he gently combed his fingers through Asuka's silken mane, which cascaded down her back like a fiery cape only to stop just above her ankles.

"No, Kira." Yumi sighed. "She obviously doesn't like your long hair fetish."

"What do you suggest?" Kira asked, even as his beautiful lover walked over to him and gently wrapped an arm around his waist.

"Well, we could always make her hair longer ourselves." Yumi sadisctially smiled, even as she disabled Asuka's ability to shorten her hair at will and to control it as though it were a limb. "Especially since she hasn't been taught how to use her newly acquired powers yet." With that, Yumi walked into a near by closet, only to return a few seconds with a small, silver bullet vibrator, and without saying anything, she turned the vibrator on and shoved it into Asuka's slit.

"MMMMPPPPHHHHH!" Asuka cried out through the gag as Yumi embedded the rapidly fluttering toy deep inside her womanhood.

"Now then, Asuka." Kira smiled, gently combing his fingers through the blue-eyed woman's soft, red tresses. "For the next ten minutes, I'm going to lengthen this beautiful hair of yours at a rate of five miles every minute, and if you want me to stop, all you need to do is tell me." He teased, knowing that with the gag in her mouth, she couldn't possibly protest. "If, after ten minutes, you haven't protested, I will then make your hair the same length as Yumi's own; 164 decillion cubic light-years."

As Kira began to lengthen Asuka's fiery locks, he noticed a thick white liquid flowing through the hose and into her gagged mouth. The amethyst-eyed man glanced towards Yumi, notcing that she had once again taken a seat in the salon chair, and had placed a clear milking bra over her soft breasts.

Suddenly, a blinding light filled the room and when it faded, the silken tresses which had bound Asuka's naked body had changed color. Instead of being brunette with blonde, pink and purple highlights, the soft locks were now solid purple.

Kira glanced to where Yumi had been sitting a second earlier, only to find that she had un-fused, and the seven women that merged to form her, had already split off into three pairs; Cagalli with Lacus, Hope with Mayu, and Murrue with Shiho. The amethyst-eyed man also noticed that all seven of the beautiful women had retained their wonderfully long hair.

Misato silently smiled, the milking bra steadily sucking on her breasts, as she walked over to Asuka, utilizing her newly acquired powers to turn off the vibrator buried deep within Asuka's womanhood, as well as the pump that was sucking on her breasts, before finally locking eyes with the red-haired beauty and removing the gag from her mouth. "Asuka, the life during which you had to put up a brave façade due to the death of your mother and the fact that your father ignored you is long gone. You don't have to act strong when you don't need to anymore."

"At the very least, let your personality soften when you're alone with us." Kira smiled, even as he continued to lovingly comb his fingers through Asuka's steadily lengthening tresses.

Ten full seconds passed in complete silence, but finally, Asuka broke down in tears, as a lifetime of various bottled up emotions, as well as great relief, as she realized that she no longer had to put up a brave façade.

"It's alright, Asuka." Misato soothingly said, even as a comforting smile crossed her features as she gently embraced Asuka, letting the red-haired woman cry into her shoulder. "Just let everything out."

"K-Kira, I have a confession to make." Asuka quietly sniffled a few minutes later, wiping the tears from her beautiful blue eyes, without even realizing that the amethyst-eyed man had stopped lengthening her fiery tresses when she had first broken down and began to cry, the soft strands of Asuka's hair now trailing elegantly behind her like a silken carpet for 15 miles. "There's a real, legitiment reason as to why I'm so hesitant to let you make my hair longer." The blue-eyed woman paused for a few agonizingly long seconds before continuing. "The reason that I'm so hesitant to let you make my hair longer is because I'm afraid that you and your other lovers won't let me shorten it again when we leave the Inner Sanctum, or that you won't help me take care of it while it's as this extraordinary length."

"You've already seen Kira tend to our hair when it was at a far greater length than any mortal woman could ever hope to achieve." Misato smiled, even as she gestured to the other six women. "So, why would you think something like that?"

"I-I'm just nervous, I guess." Asuka answered. "It may be partially due to the fact that you still have me restrained wth your hair, Misato."

"Oh, sorry!" Misato blushed, allowing her silken locks to fall limply from Asuka's body, once again revealing her full nudity.

"It's not a problem." Asuka smiled, even as Kira utilized some of his more divine abilities and took control of the blue-eyed woman's body, the amethyst-eyed man doing so without anyone realizing it. Misato's brown eyes widened in surprise as her former ward suddenly planted a searing kiss on her lips.

"W-what was that for, Asuka?" Misato asked, recovering from her shock.

"Didn't you enjoy it?" The red-haired woman replied, her tone of voice slightly saddened.

"Of course I enjoyed it." The purple-haired beauty replied, slipping her hand into Asuka's dripping womanhood and removing the small vibrator.

"Why did you do that?" Asuka whined, only for Misato to vanish into a nearby closet and return a moment later, now wearing a double-ended, strap-on dildo. Unknown to either of the two women, however, this dildo was one of a completely new design, allowing both women to impregenate each other simultaniously, in addition, hidden within each end of the dildo, was a vibrator just as powerful as the one Misato had just removed from the blue-eyed beauty's slit.

Without any hesitation, Misato scooped Asuka into her arms and carried her over to the nearby bed, gently laying her down on the soft silk sheets before then climbing onto the bed herself and straddling the red-haired beauty.

"I-I'm still a virgin, Misato." Asuka said, squirming slightly underneath the purple-haired woman body.

"Well, that will make this even more fun for me." Misato grinned, not bothering to tell the blue-eyed woman that she had every intention of restoring her virginity after they were done having sex.

Without another word, Misato plunged the thick rod into Asuka's dripping slit, even as the twin vibrators activated, causing both ends of the toy to flutter wildly within the tight confines of their vaginal canals. Asuka and Misato, now joined by the large dildo, both began pushing in and out, rocking on the thick toy.

"Oh, oh, oh wow!" Asuka couldn't form any other words, because Misato was rubbing the tip of the dildo against her g-spot. Both of the beautiful women screamed in bliss as they climaxed in unison, feeling their juices rush over the toy that was embedded deep within their womanhood. In the same instant, Asuka's fiery mane flashed out, extending from only 15 miles to 164 decillion light-years in length.

As the vaginal honey of the two women coated each end of the dildo, the toy sucked up a small amount of the reproductive fluid from each of them, instantly converting it into semen, before finally squirting the converted fluids into the two women.

When she slowly pulled out of Asuka a few minutes later, Misato instantly restored the blue-eyed woman's virgininty.

"That was wonderful, Misato." Asuka happily sighed as she sat up and gently wrapped her arms around the brown-eyed woman's waist, but her moment of happiness quickly vanished as she noticed that her silken red tresses now extended for further than her eyes could see. "What the hell did you do to me, you bitch?!" She suddenly yelled, her blue eyes flashing in fury as she shoved Misato away.

"I didn't do anything!" Misato shot back, delivering an eye-watering slap to Asuka's cheek. "And don't you ever speak to me like that again!"

An instant later, Asuka lunged at Misato, sending both women tumbling onto the floor, a flurry of purple and red locks swirling around them as they struggled, both of the women trying to gain some kind of advantage over the other.

Suddenly, a blinding flash of pure white light filled Asuka's vision and when it faded, not only did she find herself restrained to one of the salon chairs, but she could also hear the voices of Kira's other lovers within her head.

_'Well, that ended rather suddenly.'_ Misato's voice sighed.

_'What the hell just happened?'_ Asuka's own voice responded.

_'Kira forcibly merged us together.'_ Cagalli and Lacus answered in unison. _'In this form we go by the name of Yumi.'_

"Hello again, Yumi." Kira smiled, walking up behind his restrained lover, looking into the mirror in front of her, and by extention into her beautiful eyes. "I have so much fun planned for us." He purred, picking up a hairbrush from the counter and lovingly running it through her soft tresses.


	89. Calamity of So'unga

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 89**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

"Do you think the PLANTs will use nuclear weapons?" Kira Yamato asked from within the cockpit of the Freedom Gundam.

"Normally I'd say no." Athrun Zala answered from within the Justice Gundam. "If my father were himself. But right now, I'm not sure."

"Why do things like that exist in the first place?" Kira asked, moving his machine towards the launch catapult. "Nuclear weapons, well for that matter why are there even mobile suits and guns?"

"The choice we're making may be one of evil as well." Lacus Clyne spoke from the bridge of the stolen ZAFT battleship Eternal, even as the docking clamps holding the twin METOR units to the pink ship's bow released. Both of the weapons platforms slowly coasted forward, rotating ninety degrees, even as the front sections of the two units folded back allowing the Freedom and Justice to dock with their respective units. "For we call for peace, but with weapons in our hands."

Asuka glanced back nervously at the huge C-5 Galaxy cargo plane, which had taxied in behind her F/A-22 Raptor, as she sat on the Excalibur's taxiway, waiting for take off clearence. The redheaded pilot was only nervous because the huge cargo plane was closer than normal.

"Crimson Fury to tower." Asuka spoke through the communications line after a few moments. "What are the intentions of the C-5 Galaxy that just taxied in behind me?"

Before Lexi could reply, a voice came over the radio as the C-5 Galaxy's nose cargo doors opened, and the pilot of the huge transport aircraft, Misato Katsuragi, spoke. "I'm going to eat you."

Meanwhile, a group of sixty ZGMF/TAR-X1 GINN Tactical Air Reconnaissance Types flew over various regions of Japan.

"What the hell is that?" One of the GINN pilots asked himself as he noticed what could only be properly described as an army of zombies. Without any hesitation, the GINN pilot zoomed his camera in on one of the groups, noticing that all of the zombies were clad in samurai armor and armed with either swords or spears. After a few seconds a trio of yellow energy beams cleaved through the ranks of zombies. An instant later, a huge black dragon erupted from a nearby castle, with a huge blood red ball of energy grasped within its fangs.

"I shall open the gates to hell!" An omnious voice suddenly boomed as the ground began to split, revealing millions upon millions of walking corpses.

"Commander Yamato!" The GINN pilot called out, even as he split his video feed, sending it to the Divinity Gundam as the angel-winged machine quickly approached.

"Time to hand another arrogent moron their ass." Kira sighed to himself as he merged with the Divinity, which was cloaked by its Mirage Colloid, and transformed the machine from its mobile armor mode to its mobile suit mode, the angelic mobile suit once again shrinking to the size of an average human, while simultaniously activating the holoshroud, the angel-winged mobile suit projecting the image of its pilot over its armor as it quickly descended towards the ground.

As Kira landed, deactivating his stealth system as his feet touched the ground, the humanoid creature now standing in the center of the elevated landmass which served as the battlefield, rose a sword above it head, causng a massive blood red ball of energy to appear, as though it was balancing on the very tip of the blade.

Kira scowled as his advanced computers instantly analyzed the blade, and the massive energy ball floating above it.

"So'unga. The Sword of Hell." Kira muttered, reading the information as appeared in his mind. "Dragon Twister. The attack of a dragon from hell."

Kira simply rolled his eyes as the sword itself began to speak, it's voice filled with malicious glee. "Ahh, another victim."

"If you think you can kill me, you are in for quite a surprise." The amethyst-eyed man smirked as he freed the standard anti-ship sword from his back, the weapon seeming to appear from within his back as he took it into his left hand.

Standing on a nearby ridge, Kagome Higurashi, not to mention her friends and traveling companions, Sango and Mirkou, could only stare in stunned silence at the newcomer.

"Who the hell are you?" A man with long silver hair, dog-like ears and amber eyes asked, even as he slashed a huge curved sword at the humanoid creature now known as So'unga.

"I am Kira Jesus Yamato." Kira answered, grinning as a pair of brightly glowing angelic wings suddenly appeared on his back, the wings themselves were glowing with a pure white light, even as a pink aura surrounded them. "Although to be more accurate, I am the one you would call God, Inuyasha."

"Get out of here, human." Another voice spoke, this one coming from Sesshomaru, Inuyasha's older brother.

Before anyone could say anything else, So'unga charged towards Kira, but the amethyst-eyed man casually raised the physical shield on his right arm, effortlessly blocking the attack.

"Pathetic." Kira smiled as he ignited the beam blades in his legs, lashing out at So'unga and delivering a beam-assisted roundhouse kick to the creature's waist, the energy blade effortlessly cleaving through So'unga's waist and sending it falling to the ground in two pieces. "Get up, So'unga." The amethyst-eyed man scowled as he delivered a bone-shattering kick to each half of the creature, sending both pieces tumbling and rolling for nearly half a dozen feet before finally skidding to a stop. "I know very well that simply being cut in half won't kill you."

Finally, after nearly thirty seconds, So'unga regenerated, laughing as it did so. "I do have to admit, human, you have skill and you provide a unique challange."

"Oh, I'm more of a challange than you could possibly comprehend." Kira grinned. "And I have more than enough skill to hand you your ass."

"We'll see about that!" So'unga cackled, rasing the sword high above itself and unleashing the Dragon Twister. Kira simply smiled as he ignited his GN field, a sphere of brightly glowing green GN particles instantly surrounding him, deflecting the Dragon Twister and sending the glowing red energy ball rocketing skyward.

"Are you done yet?" Kira laughed as his GN field faded.

"Not even close!" So'unga growled, clearly angered by the fact that this insolent human had somehow deflected the Dragon Twister.

"Don't you realize that you're only prolonging the inevtible?" The amethyst-eyed man sighed quietly as So'unga once again unleashed the Dragon Twister. As the blood red energy ball screamed towrds him, Kira raised his right hand, the palm open, and smirked as he utilized some of his more divine powers, causing the destructive attack to harmlessly dissipate when it was only two feet in front of him.

"Damn human!" So'unga roared, charging forward and locking blades with Kira, having completely forgotten about Inuyasha and Sesshomaru.

"It's not my fault that you're weak!" Kira shot back, his wings of light flaring to life.

"I am the Sword of Hell!" So'unga snarled. "I can't be beaten by a worthless human like you!"

"Shut up!" Kira shrieked, his rail guns unfolding from his hips and firing a pair of hyper-velocity shells into So'unga at point-blank range, the twin shells effortlessly slicing through So'unga, while also propelling both halves of the body clear over to the other side of the elevated battlefield. "Get up and fight me, you fucking coward!" Kira screamed as the two pieces of So'unga's body once again skidded to a halt. After a few seconds, So'unga once again regenerated, climbing to its feet and charging at Kira, the two once again meeting with a clash of swords. The amethyst-eyed man smiled as his body suddenly began to glow with a blood red light. "TRANS-AM!"

"What is this?" So'unga asked, clearly shocked by the fact that Kira's body had suddenly been surounded by a blood red light.

"You haven't seen anything yet." Kira chuckled and an instant later, So'unga lost its balance, nearly falling flat on its face before looking into the skies above, finding that Kira had broken the clash and taken to the air, although now he had dropped the holoshroud, revealing the true form of the Divinity Gundam. "You can't possibly hope to beat me." The amethyst-eyed man grinned sadistically as he unleashed all 36 of his DRAGOON units, swarming the glowing red weapons around So'unga, but not yet opening fire with them. "You can't really be this weak." Kira taunted as So'unga continued to desperately dodge the swarming weapons. "I'm not even using any of my divine abilities and you're barely managing to dodge my DRAGOON units."

Kira watched as So'unga once again unleashed the Dragon Twister, the attack managing to wipe out the DRAGOON units, but only doing so because Kira had willingly allowed it to happen by disengaging the MCPS armor which normally protected the weapons.

"It seems that you're not quite as powerful as you thought!" So'unga cackled, only to be silenced an instant later as the Divinity's wings, and by extention its DRAGOON units, regenerated.

"Murrue, take my physical shield back to the Excalibur." Kira chuckled, completely ignoring So'unga's taunt, as he threw his solid shield into the air. "I don't need it for this fight." The amethyst-eyed man smiled as his shield was caught by the Strike Freedom Gundam and with a blast of thruster exhaust, the blue-winged machine sped away.

"Pathetic human." So'unga snarled, once more raising the sword high above itself, unaware that the Divinity Gundam had once again assumed its true size. "This will put an end to-" So'unga began, only to stop mid-sentence as it gazed upon the machine's true form. The Divinity Gundam now towered an impressive 18 meters above the battlefield.

"T-that's a Gundam!" Kagome Higurashi said in complete shock as she stared at the angel-winged machine. "We don't even have those in my time! They aren't even supposed to be real!"

"Zero, please guide me through this." Kira said, as a relaxing sigh escaped his lips and the Divinity's cockpit was momentarily illuminated with a nearly blindingly bright yellow light. Everyone on the ground watched in shock and horror as the angelic machine's faceplate suddenly split down the center, the two halves sliding to either side and revealing a mouth filled with massive teeth. Even as the faceplate split, the angel-winged mobile suit's thrusters ignited, keeping the machine balanced as its lower legs slid forward to uncover a pair of massive nuclear warheads hidden within the legs. The Divinity grabbed the two warheads, almost casually freeing them from their storage compartments and slinging them over its shoulders, the twin weapons latching onto the machine's angelic wings, even as the Divinity's twin rail guns and plasma cannons clicked into their firing positions.

Back on the ground, everyone had fallen into stunned silence, even as the Tenseiga and Tessaiga vanished from their respective owner's hands, only to reappear an instant later, the blades much larger then before, since they were now wielded within the hands of the angelic machine towering high above them.

"Yes, Zero, I know that we never repaired the timelines." Kira sighed as the Zero System began to communicate with him. "All we can do is continue to eradicate conflict." The amethyst-eyed man continued. "Because, at the moment, we don't have the ability to fix the timelines."

"Ahh, so you're the one who-" So'unga began, only to once again interrupted by Kira.

"I walk a darker path than you'll ever understand, So'unga." The amethyst-eyed man's voice boomed from the Divinity's external loudspeakers.

"You don't understand the meaning of darkness, human!" So'unga retorted.

"Really, now?" Kira smiled, even as he began to charge both of his chest-mounted multi-phase cannons. "If that's the case, why do you think that my machine; the Divinity Gundam, wields the firepower to reduce this entire pathetic planet, along with every living creature on it, to ash?"

"T-that's impossible!" So'unga roared angrily, once again attacking with the Dragon Twister, which now took the form of a massive, pitch-black dragon with glowing blood red eyes. Kira yawned within the Divinity's cockpit as the attack hit him square in the chest, only for it to be deflected by the machine's MCPS armor and slam into the ground, kicking up a huge cloud of dust and derbis.

"I was actually kind of worried that you might have scratched my machine's paint with that last attack." Kira smirked, sarcasam dripping from his voice, even as a pair of sheaths appeared on the Divinity's hips, one on the left hip and one on the right. "I don't really need these two swords to defeat you." The amethyst-eyed man sighed. "If nothing else they will make nice reserve weapons." He smiled, sheathing the blades on his hips. An instant later, the pair of nuclear missiles on the machine's back took of with a flash of exhaust. As the twin warheads screamed towards the ground, the angelic machine transformed into its mobile armor mode and sped away, vanishing only a millionth of a second before the two missiles impacted with the ground and detonated. In less time than it took to blink, everything within a 50 mile radius was engulfed by a massive orange-red mushroom cloud, the heat in excess of that at the heart of the sun.

As humans waged war upon one another on the surface of Earth, North Africa to be specific; their struggle awoke sleeping giants that had rested for over four hundred years, since the battle of Egypt long ago.

During this specific battle, the Celestial Being warship Katsuragi and its compliment of Gundams with their allies, mainly GINNs and Windams, fought against OMNI's Strike Daggers. Various beam blasts lashed back and forth and missiles arced high above, even as the Eclipse and Twilight Gundams fired dozens of magnetically accelerated rounds into the midst of the Strike Dagger horde. One of these, a kinetic energy penetrator with an anti-matter explosive planted in its head, missed its target and shot through the sand and bedrock to a capsule buried far beneath the surface. The accompanying positron detonation and release of gamma radiation messed with the circuitry, releasing the occupants of the capsule prematurely, along with another capsule buried nearby.

From the first capsule, a biomechanical-looking, humanoid machine erupted from the sand, claws grasping out and ripping at the Strike Dagger's torsos as the alien robot roared.

"I am Megatron!" The sheer hatred and bloodlust embodied in that harsh, mechanical voice caused several of the OMNI suits to back off, even as other robots forced their way up through the sand. One of them, looking like a triangle with head and limbs, reflexively flinched away from Megatron, before the machine roared again. "STARSCREAM! Are we still on this misbegotten rock of a planet?"

"It would appear so, my lord Megatron." Starscream replied in a scratchy, wheedling voice, even as the other machines, known as Decepticons, formed around their principal commanders.

"Where is Prime? I had him and his Autobots buried near our location!" Almost as though summoned, the red and blue form of Optimus broke through the dunes, followed closely by the faded yellow of Bumblebee. On each side, Decepticons amongst the OMNI forces, and the Autobots from under the Archangel, Transformers continued to exhume themselves, engaging in combat with one another.

Or, in Megatron's case, with the bystanders. As his infamous fusion cannon fired again and again at the Strike Daggers, he posed Starscream a simple question.

"Why are my optics so distorted?" Starscream replied simply.

"Lord Megatron, it appears that our capsules were disrupted by weapons fire from these humans." He said, gesturing at the mobile suits. "I believe that this also may have scrambled our optical cir-" The aerial Decepticon was interrupted by Megatron's fist smashing into his face.

"You overestimate these fleshlings, Starscream." The Decepticon leader stated. As he spoke, his red optics flickered off for a brief second before reactivating. And beheld the red and white armored Twilight Gundam, the same height as the Cybertronian. As he gazed at the surprisingly daunting weapon the human had created, Megatron couldn't help but vocalize what he believed was a human expletive for a situation like this. "Fuck."

Optimus, for his part, stood by the white, red and blue mobile suit designated as the Eclipse Gundam, watching the confrontation. In his dozens of millennia as a Prime, he had seen many things he would never have expected to witness. One such item he was currently adding to the list was his brothers slack-jawed look as the Eclipse drew its foot back and disdainfully kicked Megatron in the chest, crumpling Cybertronian armor and sending the Decepticon bowling end over end, crashing into one of the Constructicons, Ravage. One of the other Decepticons, a cousin to the one known as Brawl, roared and charged the Eclipse, guns blazing before Optimus could warn it.

Shinn lazily grabbed the charging robot by the chest, ignoring the ineffective bullets, forcing the Eclipse's hand through a small part of its armor as it lifted the machine up to camera level.

"God, we really did mess up the timelines." The crimson-eyed man sighed to himself, before then regarding the machine in his hand. "And this is one ugly fucker." Finally, he drew the Eclipse's anti-ship sword back and stabbed forward, piercing the bulky mechanical through the torso just as he released it. The next second saw the Eclipse Gundam fire both of its hip-mounted rail guns, the beam-tipped rounds melting through the Decepticon's chest and spark, traveling through it to plant themselves in a Strike Dagger leading a group of its fellows against the currently immobile Autobots. The explosion ripped the lead Strike Dagger apart, severely damaging those surrounding it.

Optimus stared, aghast, at the strange machine before him. It was humanoid, like the Transformers themselves in their non-vehicle forms, and was roughly the same height.

The machine was white with a blue chest, with piercing green optics and a head design strangely not unlike that of Optimus himself. It's back sported long, blood red angular wings, and sections of its legs flared slightly outwards. The blade the mech held against his face was just as light blue, except for a pinkish-red plasma strip that constantly cycled along the blade, and as long as Optimus was tall. On its other limb, the mech sported an equally large square-shaped shield with a silvery edge.

Off to the side, Optimus witnessed further action by the Decepticons.

A Brawl-baseform roared, bringing its cannon about to fire at the blood red machine, which ran straight into the blast, the shell only stopping its run for a moment before the machine almost eagerly leaped up and forward, blue-white plasma flaring from the thrusters ensconced in its back and legs. The machine dropped down onto the Brawl, a foot smashing into the war-loving Decepticon's shoulder and crushing the frame down, before the beam-clawed right hand sliced down and into the Brawl's torso, claws cutting all the way through to its back. By luck or design, Brawl's Spark was left intact, as the machine stepped off of its shoulder and lifted Brawl until it was level with the crimson machine's optics. And was summarily torn apart in an instant, the beam claws on the machine's left hand tearing into Brawl's waist and slicing outwards until its legs fell, as the claws embedded in Brawl's chest closed and crushed its Spark.

A pair of Protoform Decepticons, sealed before they could acquire their vehicle forms, jerked suddenly as gold-hot blades stabbed through them, slicing through layers of alloys that had managed to protect generations of Transformers from lesser bladed weapons. As they fell, a black machine similar to many of the others appeared, before flickering back into invisibility.

During the brief instant in which he had seen the machine, Optimus recoiled. That machine had to be one of the most hideous, fearsome-looking things he had ever seen. It appeared as though it had been cobbled together from the remains of other machines that had seen dozens of battles, covered head-to-foot in scars, the shield mounted on its left arm looking cracked, cursed; evil.

But the most frightening aspect of the machine had been its head. The left side of the machine's head appeared to be in pristine condition while the right looked like it had been run through a garbage disposal, then cobbled back together. The entire right half of the visor was gone, exposing the glowing camera eye. The left-side camera eye appeared blue, but without the cover, the demonic red light of the right-side camera eye was revealed without inhibition.

Megatron had now recovered from the crunching kick the crimson machine had given him, slowly and almost painfully crawling back up to his feet. It was apparent he was having some trouble moving his torso around, and Optimus really didn't think he'd be able to transform with his armor all mashed together like that.

Then Megatron roared, raising his right arm, the limb shifting into a configuration any Transformer knew all to well, some from experience. The fusion cannon.

The most powerful weapon any Transformer could have, the fusion cannon could annihilate anything with a good direct hit. It required a few seconds to charge as it gathered surrounding gases and compressed and heated them until fusion was achieved, at which point the ball of superheated plasma was shot out of the cannon at a good fraction of the speed of light.

"You must run." Optimus pleaded with the machine before him. "Megatron is charging his cannon! It-" The machine quickly stowed its sword and withdrew its rifle, even as it smashed Optimus aside with its shield, before igniting a beam shield and holding the barrier between itself and Megatron.

Who then fired, the golden bolt of energy and plasma blasting apart the air to reach its target. And when it did; the heat and radiation from the impact forced Optimus' optics to temporarily go off-line for safety. And when they came back on, the blue machine stood there, its shield none the worse for the experience it had just gone through. Then, the machine simply raised its right arm, so that the rifle in its hand aimed directly at the leader of the Deceptions.

A flurry of rapid-fire beam beams shot the fusion cannon to pieces, smoldering, melting fragments of Cybertronian alloys dropping to the hot sand below before the rest of Megatron's arm followed, with the dark Transformer gaping in mixed horror and awe.

Then the machine leapt forth, quantum crystal anti-ship sword out and slicing through Megatron at the waist as it's wielder came to a stop assisted by the thrusters in its wings and legs, the machine pivoting about to once again slice at Megatron. The flurry of swipes continued for twenty seconds, until Megatron finally fell to the ground in five pieces that were barely capable of recognition as his parts.


	90. Third Impact Part 1

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 90**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

Even as these, along with hundreds, if not thousands, of other battles raged on the surface and in the atmosphere of the Earth, Athrun Zala sat smack-dab in the middle of a Celestial Being shuttle, with Meyrin Hawke next to him and Lacus Clyne in front of him, all returning from the L4 Research Colony, once known as Mendel, which was now being converted into a makeshift PLANT for the former ZAFT and Earth Alliance troops and citizens whom were loyal to Celestial Being. All told, maybe just over five million had left the PLANTs and the Alliance to be formally intergrated into, and brought under the protection of, the private armed organization.

As the shuttle continued on its reletively short trip back to the Excalibur, Athrun's cell phone; a perfect replica of the Motorola Razr V3, suddenly began to beep, letting him know that he had received a text message. With a nearly inaudible sigh, he pulled the device from his pocket, flipped it open and read the text, which was from Shinn Asuka.

"I'm not watching that shit entitled; Mereana Mordegard Glesgorv, on YouTube or anywhere else, Athrun." The message read. "I googled it, clicked on the first link, and out came a damn screenshot of a man, hanging from the ceiling of some room, by a pair of intestines, with no eyes, and to top it all off, his skull had been split open, revealing his brain."

Athrun, not having sent the other pilot anything to watch, was quick to reply. "What are you talking about, Shinn?" He typed. "I never sent you links to a video of any kind."

Another day, another port of call for the famous warship Katsuragi. As the boarding gantry locked into place, Misato idly searched the banks of her memory for recollections about the space fortress Boaz. They had made some changes, at least; the docking brace into which the Katsuragi was fitted seemed to be a new addition.

The airlock door swung open and on the other end, flanked by officers clad in a variety of uniforms from across various timelines, a man in the old style of an Orb flag officer's uniform coolly accepted Misato's salute. The man; Rear Admiral Oshida, ran a tight ship here; so Misato and her crew had no worries about getting shot in the back.

"Looks like you needed a pit stop." Oshida said as he shook her hand. "Did anyone follow you?"

"Not that we know of." Misato said with a shrug. "But a number of warships are known to use Mirage Colloid."

Oshida and his entourage led Misato and Asuka out through the gantry, and out the windows she glanced towards the distinctive tapering shape of the space fortress Boaz. In this fractured timeline, ZAFT had started to build it during the First Bloody Valentine War as a secret base inside the Debris Belt, not far from Lagrange Point 3. ZAFT had left before it was complete, and Celestial Being had finished the job. And now, after the disaster at Carpentaria and the destruction of various locations, it was one of the last strongholds Celestial Being had to its name.

Boaz had many interesting bits and pieces, and one of them was its ready-made escape ship. Asuka Langley Soryu drifted down the observation corridor, an hour later, taking in the image before her.

It was known as the Blizzard, the blue-painted tenth warship of the Eternal-class, that had been buried in rock up to its bridge tower and sequestered in here as one of Boaz's many surprises for attackers. Few officers from any military would expect that Boaz itself could crack open and vomit up a cruiser, and the Blizzard was only one of half a dozen ships concealed within the sprawling fortress. The humming reactors of the six warships, in the meantime, made for handy auxiliary power sources.

"You again, eh?"

The Providence Gundam's DRAGOON units flashed around the Divinity Gundam, showering it with beam fire. Kira tried to charge through the net, but a volley of shots blocked his path. He looked up and saw the Providence, and heard the voice of Rau Le Creuset.

"You shouldn't even exist!" Rau snarled. Kira ignited one of the METEOR's beam sabers and took a swipe, but the Providence expertly dodged and dove in with its own saber to slash the METEOR's saber in half. Kira abandoned the ruined weapon as it exploded and charged on with his remaining saber ignited. "If anyone discovered you." Rau went on, as the Providence dodged again and surrounded the Divinity with beam shots. "They'd want to be like you!"

The Providence's DRAGOON units flashed in, forcing Kira back, and the Providence itself sliced the second beam saber in half as well. Kira drew the Divinity's sabers and hurriedly deflected the Providence's shots, boxed in by the DRAGOON units.

"You know, Kira." Rau laughed as the Providence descended on the helpless Divinity. "You're not a person! You're not even a Coordinator! You're just an experiment, a tool, a weapon!"

The Divinity dodged as a beam shot slashed near its head. "I'm not just a weapon!" Kira exclaimed, firing back with the Divinity's twin plasma cannons.

The Providence dove out of the way. "And who will understand that?" Rau laughed. The Providence's DRAGOON units darted around Kira again, as he backpedaled away from the Providence itself. "No one will understand!" He shouted. The DRAGOON units stormed in, Kira found his METEOR being blasted away from the Divinity, and the Providence itself raged in for the kill. "_No matter who!_"

The Providence came down with a beam saber slash, and Kira ejected the remaining parts of the METEOR before they exploded around him. He drew the Divinity's physical shield and beam rifle and went on the attack. Rau laughed as Kira charged.

"It's useless!" He cackled as the Divinity struggled to hit him and was surrounded in a web of beam fire. "You know you're fighting for the wrong thing!" Rau looked off to the side, as the DRAGOON units fenced Kira in. He flashed a grin towards the Divinity, feeling a twinge of pressure from his white-armored foe.

"You're useless!" Kira roared, as the Divinity slithered out of the net the DRAGOON units had woven and charged, and Rau deflected the Divinity's beam saber swing with the Providence's shield. The mobile suits parted again, and the Divinity dove through an opening in the DRAGOON volleys.

"You know as well as I do that if you go back you'll be just a weapon!" Rau cried.

"You don't know anything!" Kira shouted, as the Divinity stormed forward with its saber. The mobile suits met again in a shower of sparks.

"Of course I don't know!" Rau cackled. "Humans can only understand what they've experinced!"

The Providence shoulder-rammed the Divinity and knocked it away, forcing it back on the defensive. Kira grunted in frustration, charging back into the Providence's face.

"One day." Rau laughed, as the beam sabers clashed again. "One day they'll understand!" He pushed the Divinity away and bombarded it with beam shots again. "That's what you said! Well they _don't_ understand! And they never will!"

Kira grunted in pain as the Divinity rattled. "You're wrong!" He shouted.

"Am I?" Rau laughed again, as the DRAGOON units went on the attack again. "Eyes that see only blood, hearts that feel only hatred, hands that know only how to pull a trigger, and you say I'm wrong?" The Providence came down with a slash, and the Divinity repelled the saber stroke with its shield. With a beam shot, the two mobile suits separated again. Rau fired his beam rifle back at the Divinity, nearly clipping its leg. The mobile suits clashed again in a beam saber lock. "Look at that thing, GENESIS! Does it look like something made by creatures that _won't_ destroy themselves?"

"You're wrong!" Kira cried, his rage slowly building.

Rau laughed maniacally. "We'll see who's wrong, little Kira!"

The Providence suddenly retrieved its DRAGOON units and sped away. Then the world went white as GENESIS began its fiery death throes. Risking one last glance around the battlefield, he latched onto the wreck of a destroyed Nazca-class ship to ride out the blast.

"I understand."

Sumeragi Lee Noriega looked away shamefully. She had envisioned the end of this war as something joyous, but this was hardly a joyful occasion. Athrun stood before her on the bridge of the Archangel, his face sad.

"I couldn't find Kira after the blast." He said sullenly. "I have to assume..." He trailed off, not willing to finish.

Miriallia and Sai looked down somberly. Most of the members of Celestial Being had no idea that Kira Yamato and with his lovers were immortal, and Athrun was not about to devulge what was considered to be top secret information.

Athrun glanced across the bridge. Yzak Jule was leaning there, arms crossed, staring neutrally at him.

"We can't go to Orb." Sumeragi said quietly. "The Seirans have taken over there, and they're extremely unfriendly to Athha family supporters like us." She looked out the bridge windows. "And Kira's gone."

"What will we do?" Athrun asked. Sumeragi looked back at him.

"Cagalli wants to fight the Seirans." The auburn-haired woman answered. "We're going to return to the Excalibur to refit ourselves into something that can actually take them on." She shrugged her shoulders. "We're basically going to be space pirates. That's how it sounded when she described it to me, anyways."

Sumeragi sank into her chair and sighed.

The Archangel silently glided into space, closely flanked by the Eternal and Kusanagi.

Dozens of green beam blasts seared their way through the blackness. The battle which had originally been a one-on-one between the Divinity and Providence, was now a two-on-one, with the Divinity fighting both the Providence and a highly modified version of the Legend, which Kira's computers identified as the ZGMF-X666B Eternal Legend Gundam.

At first glance, the Eternal Legend Gundam appeared to be nothing more than the original Legend Gundam, but upon closer inspection, it was obvious that the Eternal Legend had more weapons than its predecessor, specifically a pair of hip-mounted rail guns, a pair of plasma cannons hidden within the backpack and a single beam cannon in the chest.

"Ok, if you two morons want to gang up on me." Kira scowled. "I'll just pull out all the stops, one by one." With that, the Divinity unleashed its own DRAGOON units, before then transforming into its mobile armor mode, igniting its wings of light and streaking towards the Providence, ramming the machine in the chest. In the cockpit of the Providence, Rau grunted as his machine rattled violently, and an instant later, he found himself staring into the monitor and by extention, into brightly glowing, amethyst eyes of the Divinity Gundam.

Kira grunted in frustration as the Eternal Legend kicked him away from the Providence, before opening fire with its DRAGOON units and forcing him back even further. With an annoyed sigh, the amethyst-eyed man ignited his beam shields and recalled his own DRAGOON units.

Once the remote weapons had again docked on his machine's back, the Divinity rocketed towards the imposing shapes of the Providence and Eternal Legend. Within the cockpit of the angelic machine, Kira scowled at the dark forms of the sinister mobile suits. Those two things could no longer be allowed to exist.

Rau Le Creuset looked up at a familiar sensation. Up ahead, he could see the familiar translucent beam wings of the Divinity Gundam, as it streaked once again towards him.

"Rey." He said, as the Providence glanced at the Eternal Legend. Rey Za Burrel nodded; both machines launched their DRAGOONs with a flash and opened fire.

Kira's eyes widened as a white bolt split the air before him, and the Divinity slalomed through a wave of beam fire with a blur of afterimages. The Providence squeezed off a handful of beam shots, as the Eternal Legend combined its rifles and fired. The Divinity dodged again and stormed forward; another blaze of DRAGOONs stopped it.

"Fighting us again, are you?" Rau asked with a chuckle as the Divinity swerved and dodged. "There's always someone to try to stop the inevitable!"

The Eternal Legend fired a full burst; Rey scowled at the twisting and turning Divinity. "Get out of our way!" He snapped.

The DRAGOONs flashed in again, and Kira skillfully dove around them, watching the Providence and Eternal Legend carefully. The Eternal Legend opened fire with another full burst, as the DRAGOONs swarmed around the Divinity.

"What good can you possibly hope to achieve here?" Rau cackled. "Even if you stop humanity here, they'll just come back!" The Providence fired its beam cannons, spearing the Divinity's beam rifle and knocking its physical shield off its arm. Kira grunted in frustration, abandoning his beam rifle as it was torn apart by more DRAGOON fire.

The Eternal Legend swept in with another full burst. Kira backpedaled against the attack and swerved to avoid a flashing net of beam fire. He grunted as beam blasts landed against the Divinity's beam shields.

"I'll show both of you!" Kira screamed, as the Divinity began to glow with a blood red light. "TRANS-AM!"

"What is that thing?" Rey asked, as the angelic machine lit up with a crimson light, now leaving a five-mile long trail of blindingly bright afterimages in its wake. Unlike the afterimages left behind when the Wings of Light or Trans-Am were operating alone, the afterimages left behind when the two systems were operating together weren't red-shifted, making them a perfect match for the real thing. Not only did the afterimages match the Divinity in color, they were also physical manifestations of the angelic machine.

"This is the power of God." Kira smirked, but an instant later, everything came to a sudden halt as multiple voices, all of which were familiar to the former Nerv personnel, echoed through the communications lines.

"The Eva series have opened up their S2 systems!" The voice of Shigeru Aoba spoke through the communications line.

"Dimensional values are inverting! They're going negative!" Makoto Hyuga yelled. "Measurement impossible...Numerical expression is invalid!"

"An anti-AT Field..." Fuyutsuki said, his voice just above a whisper.

"We have begun Third Impact!" The voice of Maya Ibuki announced, her voice tinged with fear.

"Who were those people?" Rau and Rey asked at the same time, even as the Providence and Eternal Legend recalled their DRAGOON units and came to a stop.

"Shit." Kira growled, transforming the Divinity into its mobile armor mode and streaking away from the pair of grey mobile suits, speeding towards Earth.

In the blink of an eye, a massive explosion enveloped the city of Tokyo-3 and the Geofront below, the force of the blast violently shaking the Command Center.

"Direct impact!" Aoba yelled. "Surface layers melting!"

"Second wave excavating headquarters periphery!" Hyuga reported at the same time. "It's exposing the outer hull!

"These are just physical shock waves!" Fuyutsuki said. "Set the absorbers to maximum!"

The explosion quickly expanded outward from the Geofront, revealing the egg of Lilith; the Black Moon.

"No you don't!" Kira shrieked, as the angel-winged mobile suit plunged into the Earth's atmosphere. The machine's armor blazing bright red with the light of Trans-Am and the heat of re-entry. "I will not let this shit happen!" The amethyst-eyed man roared as the Divinity Gundam cleaved the clouds themselves in half, transformed into its mobile armor attack mode and closed its claws around Evangelion Unit 01.

"Where the hell is the Katsuragi?" Kira growled, igniting his thrusters, the Divinity Gundam was actually attempting to force Evanglion Unit 01 out of the glowing orange form of the Sephroticum, which now surrounded the purple beast.

"Unidentified high-energy source approaching rapidly from Terminal Dogma!" Aoba suddenly announced from within the Command Center far below.

"AT Field verified!" Hyuga yelled. "Analysis pattern blue!"

"It's not...an Angel!" Maya asked, terror obvious in her voice.

"No!" Hyuga answered. "It's...a person! It's human!"

Lilith-Rei rose through the Command Center, her left hand passeing through Maya, who shrieked in terror.

"Damn...Damn...Damn...Damn!" Shinji whimpered from inside the suspended form of Evangelion Unit 01, even as the Lance of Longinus pulled freed from the surface of the Moon and sped towards Evangelion Unit 01.

"I don't fucking think so!" Kira screamed as the Divinity Gundam released Evangelion Unit 01, transformed into its mobile suit mode, ignited the beam sabers on its wrists, and sliced the rapidly approaching weapon in half length-wise, before then slicing it into more than a dozen other pieces, all of which fell harmlessly to the ground below.

"Ahh, the whore finally arrives." Kira grinned as Lilith-Rei rose from the ground to face Evangelion Unit 01.

"The Eva series' AT Fields are resonating!" Aoba yelled, even as the mass production Evangelion Units began to glow with a white light.

"The resonation is increasing!" Hyuga added.

"Has the assimilation with Rei begun?" Fuyutsuki wondered to himself, even as the Eva series took Rei's laughing faces and Evangelion Unit 01's core was exposed as Shinji clutched futilely at the controls.

"About time you guys arrived, Misato." Kira sighed, even as he fired his twin buster rifles continously, along with a steady stream of rail gun shells and plasma blasts at Lilith-Rei, but much to the amethsyt-eyed man's annoyance his weapons were blocked by the AT Field. The purple-rimmed warship Katsuragi streaked into the fight, its positron cannon already deployed and quickly charging, even as it spewed a hail of beam blasts and armor piercing shells at Lilith-Rei, only for the weapons, like those of the Divinity, to harmlessly impact the creature's AT Field. Even as the Katsuragi prepared another volley, the blood red form of Evangelion Unit 02, or as it was now known; Crimson Fury, streaked from the warship's portside launch bay, the crimson machine holding a beam rifle in its right hand, opening fire as soon as it had cleared the launch bay.

"Sorry, Kira." Misato replied. "We got hung up at Boaz."

"As long as we can stop this, it's not a problem." The amethyst-eyed man smiled slightly, freeing both of the twin buster rifles from his back and unleashing full-power columns of glowing yellow energy on the mass production Evangelion Units, destroying them with one shot each. "Oh, shit!" Kira yelled, as six pair of bright orange energy wings suddenly extended from Evangelion Unit 01's back, the glowing wings extending for more than five miles.

"We will be the only ones to destroy the human race!" The voices of Rau Le Creuset and Ray Za Burrel yelled in unison as the Providence and Eternal Legend Gundams streaked into the fight, both machines unleashing their flight-capable DRAGOON units and opening fire on Lilith-Rei from all sides, only for the AT Field to block their shots.

"Don't worry, Kira." The voices of Shinn Asuka and Lunamaria Hawke spoke through the communications line, as the Eclipse and Twilight Gundams sped into the fight, both machines wielding their anti-ship sword in their right hand and their beam rifle in the left, with their long-range beam cannons slung under their left arm. Even as a dozen mobile suits; four DINNs, four ZAKUs and four GuAIZ-Rs, launched from the Katsuragi, the twelve machines quickly forming up around Crimson Fury and opened fire on Lilith-Rei.

A moment later, the Divinity shook violently, and Kira stared in disbelief, as the pale-skinned creature swung at the Divinity, severing the machine's right arm. With a disorienting smack, the Divinity went staggering down towards the ground, a screaming Lilith-Rei followed at a breakneck speed, and a moment later, came driving down with an open palm towards the Divinity, clearly intending to squash the angelic machine. Kira's instincts took over and he ejected the Wyvern superfighter just as Lilith-Rei slammed her open palm into the Divinity's chest. As the Divinity Gundam was smashed into the ground and exploded, Kira yanked back on the Wyvern's joystick, pulling up, the underbelly of the aircraft skimming just above the tops of the trees.

The amethyst-eyed man stared down in disbelief at the Wyvern's controls. That thing had beat him so easily. His disbelief quickly turned to rage and hatred, however, as he spoke through the communications line. "Misato, I need a replacement Chest Flyer and Leg Flyer." He paused for a few seconds to get his quickly rising anger under control. "I also need a Lightning Striker."

"Understood." Misato replied from the bridge of the winged warship, and a few short seconds later, the requested equipment streaked out of the Katsuragi's centerline catapult.

Kira grinned from within the cockpit of the X-02 Wyvern as he initiated the automated docking sequence, and felt the wings of his X-02 Wyvern begin to retract into the sides of the aircraft as it waited for the Chest and Leg Flyer. The slight shaking of the jet and loss of vision granted him access to the next combination stage. Kira pressed a button on the control panel as the Leg Flyer docked with his Wyvern; two seconds later the Chest Flyer docked forming the complete Divinity Gundam.

As soon as the combination sequence had completed, the Divinity Gundam raised its head slightly and its eyes flashed with a bright purple light. At the same time, the Divinity's MCPS armor activated and the grey color which the armor displayed in its powered down state was quickly replaced by a two-tone of white and black. The chest armor changed to white and black with a few red accents, while the armor covering the arms and legs changed to white, with black accents, then the words 'CB-X60D DIVINITY GUNDAM' suddenly appeared, in black letters on angelic machine's arms, the text looking almost like a demonic tattoo, finally the Orb Union national crest appeared on the mobile suit's right shoulder, while the Celestial Being crest appeared on its left shoulder. Three seconds after the Divinity Gundam had completed its combination sequence, the Lightning Striker attached itself to the angel-winged machine. Kira scowled as he combined the two components of the rail gun, and started firing at the huge creature towering over him.

"Lilith's anti-AT Field is expanding!" Lexi's holographic vestige exclaimed, as the Katsuragi quaked under fire from Nerv's few remaining anti-aircraft defenses. Misato nodded grimly, things were falling apart much faster than she had thought.

"Begin pulling back!" She ordered. "Lexi, recall the-" Misato continued as the winged warship began to turn away from the huge creature and its engines blazed to life, only to be cut off as Lilith's anti-AT Field swept over the ship.


	91. Third Impact Part 2

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 91**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

"You bitch!" Kira snarled as he ignited the beam sabers on the Divinity Gundam's wrists, legs and feet, all six of the beam blades glowing with a pure white light. He then ignited his wings of light and quickly moved in to attack Lilith directly, but suddenly the angel-winged machine's beam blades deactivated, its eyes going dark as its armor reverted to the dull grey of its powered down state. The amethyst-eyed man could only watch in stunned silence as Lilith effortlessly swatted the Providence and Eternal Legend Gundams from the sky, sending both mobile suits careening into the ground before they finally vanished within a pair of huge explosions.

"The Fruit of Life is possessed by the Angels, and the Fruit of Wisdom is possessed by humans." Fuyutsuki spoke from within the Nerv Command Center, more to himself than anyone else. "Having obtained them both, Evangelion Unit 01 has become like a God. And now the Tree of Life has been restored." He paused for a few seconds before continuing. "Will it become the Ark to save humankind from the nothingness of Third Impact? Or the demon that destroys us all? Our future now lies in the hands of Ikari's son."

"Did...Did we do the right thing?" Maya whimpered, even as she clutched at Aoba's sleeve.

"How the hell should I know!" Aoba answered.

"The anti-AT Field from Lilith...it's expanding further!" Aoba exclaimed. "It's materializing!"

The earth's surface suddenly turned white, spreading outwards as Lilith-Rei emerged.

"Anti-AT Field critical limit exceeded!" Hyuga exclaimed.

"No...! If this continues, individual life-forms will be unable to maintain their separate entities!" Aoba yelled, even as a pair of wings sprouted from Lilith-Rei's back.

"The Hall of Souls has been unsealed." Fuyutsuki said. "Has the door to the world's beginning and end finally opened?"

Throughout all of this, Kira could only watch, since the Divinity Gundam had stopped responding to the inputs of its pilot, leaving the angelic machine to simply hover in front of Lilith's mammoth form. Suddenly, the Divinity's cockpit lit up with a blindingly bright yellow light.

"Divinity, can you move?" Kira asked, and in response the machine's eyes flashed with a bright amethyst light.

"People are surrounded by emptiness." The voice of Rei Ayanami spoke from all around. "And loneliness has filled their hearts."

"I know it's extrememly hard for someone like you, Rei Ayanami." Kira snarled as the Divinity Gundam's MCPS armor reactivated, once more lighting up in vivid white, black and red, even as the angelic machine's eyes flashed with a nearly blindingly bright purple light. "But please, at least try to stop being so damn stupid!" The amethyst-eyed man roared as the Divinity's twin chest-mounted multi-phase cannons fired, the searing blue-red energy beams harmlessly dissipating against Lilith's powerful AT Field. "Unlike you, not everyone is a fucking isolationist!"

Kira's eyes widened in horror as everything unexpectedly came crashing down around him, as his world vanished within an expanding plane of white. He saw the wreckage of the Katsuragi come falling down to the ground. He felt the familiar presences onboard the winged warship vanish, he felt them disappear.

And he saw Lilith, watching the fireball impassively.

His blood boiled. This creature would undoubtedly take everything from him. It had already killed his friends, it was quite possible that it had killed his family as well. Even if it hadn't killed his family, this abomination had taken away his life.

He watched the brightly glowing violet seed, veined with gold, fall through the void in his mind, before reaching out and snatching it, determined to end this once and for all. Kira appeared in a lush meadow in his mind's eye, gently clutching the bright glowing seed in his right hand. After a few seconds, he clenched his hand into a fist and slammed it into the ground. The seed instantly took root and with a flash of light, a brightly glowing purple and gold veined tree sprung from the ground.

In the blink of an eye, the Divinity's rail guns and plasma cannons swung into their firing positions and began to unleash a continuous stream of searing blue-red beam blasts and armor-piercing shells. Kira snarled in anger as the weapons were once again blocked by Lilith's powerful AT Field.

Kira's eyes widened in surprise when he suddenly found himself in a train car, along with Evangelion pilots; Rei Ayanami and Shniji Ikari. The amethyst-eyed man instantly realized that the two Evangelion pilots had somehow obtained telepathic abilities on a level similar to his own.

"Nobody understands me." Shinji spoke.

"You didn't understand anything." Rei replied.

"I thought this was supposed to be a world without unpleasantness...without uncertainity." Shinji said, forcing Kira to stifle a laugh.

"Because you thought that everyone else was like you." Rei answered.

"You betrayed me!" Shinji yelled. "You've betrayed my feelings!"

"You've misunderstood from the start." Rei's emotionless voice droned. "You simply assumed without asking."

"Nobody wants me." Shinji growled, anger becoming apparent in his voice. "So, everybody can just die."

"I can't let you do that, Shinji Ikari." Kira's voice replied.

"It'd be better if I wasn't here either." Shinji continued. "So I should just die, too."

"Then, why are you here?" Rei asked.

"Shut up with the philosophical bullshit." Kira finally cut in, causing the two Evangelion pilots to turn and look at him.

Back in reality, torrents of crimson blood began to gush from Lilith-Rei's neck as she leaned backwards. Shinji and Rei had merged together in the sea of LCL that now covered the planet.

"Where are we?" Shinji's voice asked.

"This is the sea of LCL. The primordial soup of life." Rei answered. "This is a world without AT Fields...without your own shape. An ambiguous world where it is impossible to tell where you end and other people start. A fragile world where you exist everywhere, and yet exist nowhere."

"Have I died?" Shinji asked.

"No, everything has just been joined into one." Rei answered. "This is the world you have been hoping for. This is your world."

"But...this isn't right." Shinji replied. "I don't think this is right."

"If you wish once more for the existence of others, the barriers of the heart will separate everyone once more." Rei replied. "And the fear of other people will begin again."

Shinji had now rejected Human Instrumentality, Lilith-Rei quickly collapsed backwards as her wings vanished, even as Evangelion Unit 01 broke out from her eye, the purple beast growing a pair of massive wings. Lilith-Rei's body quickly disintegrated, releasing torrents of LCL which began to rapidly spread outward, while the now deactivated Eva Series units fell to the surface of the planet.

"Damn, that was like a bad sample of LSD." Kira muttered from the cockpit of the Divinity Gundam as he gently landed his angelic machine on a blood-soaked beach. The amethyst-eyed man sighed quietly as he glanced towards the screen on his left, noticing Shinji Ikari, as he silently lay on the beach, aimlessly staring into the starry night sky. The Evangelion pilot seemed to be completely unaware of the Divinity Gundam, even though the angel-winged mobile suit was standing less than ten meters from him.

Meanwhile, high above the planet, the base Infinite Justice Gundam rumbled as its engines carried it out of the Excalibur's hanger and into battle. Athrun glanced around the cockpit; the Infinite Justice lost much of its weaponry without the Fatum-01 unit, but it still had its rifle, shield, sabers, and beam blades, and without the heavy Fatum unit, at least it had more agility.

"Meyrin, how is it?" He asked.

To his right, inside a violet-colored Blaze ZAKU Warrior, Meyrin Hawke shifted uncomfortably in the cockpit. "It'll do, I guess." She said with an airy sigh. "But it's not the same as my GuAIZ Experimental Firearms Type."

"Of course not. So don't push your luck." Athrun glanced next at the Murasame on his left, in its sleek flight mode, with Shiho Hahnenfuss in the cockpit. "Meyrin, you hang back and provide fire support. The ZAKU just won't be able to keep up."

"Incoming!" Athrun suddenly shouted. "Scatter!"

The three mobile suits darted apart and Athrun opened fire with his beam rifle as a squad of Slaughter Windams came roaring in, rifles blazing, with a dark green and black mobile suit at their lead. It sent out a shining column of beam energy from the cannon on the left-hand side of its back, forcing the three mobile suits to dodge, and plowing straight through a quartet of Celestial Being mobile suits coming up from behind.

The LN-ZGMF-X13A Nix Providence Gundam suddenly screamed in from the blackness, fired out its DRAGOON units and filled the sky with beam blasts, forcing the three mobile suits on the defensive. Athrun quickly leveled off his beam rifle to return fire, but a moment later a shell slammed into the Infinite Justice's face and sent him hurtling back, and with a crash, the LR-GAT-X102 Regen Duel Gundam was there with its beam saber lit to slash the Infinite Justice's rifle in two.

"Don't think you people are going to have it easy this time!" The pilot of the Regen Duel cried. "We are sick of you and your armed interventions, Celestial Being!"

The Blaze ZAKU Warrior darted down with two beam sabers extending off the barrel of its customized rifle and swung them both at the Regen Duel, driving it back. "Hands off, jackass!" Meyrin screamed. "Athrun!"

"Damn!" Athrun growled, and with a flash the Infinite Justice activated its beam wings, drew a saber, and charged back into the fray. "Meyrin, Shiho, stay back."

He threw his saber up to defend and the Infinite Justice shuddered as two huge, serrated swords slammed down into the saber blade. Athrun looked up in surprise, into the glowering face of the LG-GAT-X105 Gale Strike Gundam.

Shiho's Murasame rattled as something clamped onto it, and in front of her appeared the crimson armor and burning blue eyes of the LN-GAT-X207 Nebula Blitz Gundam. "Another one?"

"Can't say I'm too impressed!" The pilot of the Nebula Blitz cackled. "Now I've got you, and I'll never let you go!"

Shiho scowled. "Never, huh?" With a blast of exhaust, the Murasame flipped backwards and swung the Nebula Blitz around. "Never can be a pretty long time! Meyrin!"

A scream broke through the air as Meyrin's ZAKU Warrior came down, now with its axe drawn. The pilot of the Nebula Blitz growled in frustration, released the Murasame, and darted to safety as the ZAKU's axe came down. A moment later the Nix Providence dropped in with a crash to shoulder the Murasame aside and slam its saber down against the ZAKU's left-hand shield.

"Leave the other two to me!" The pilot of the Nix Providence barked. "Focus on the Justice!"

The four Alliance mobile suits rushed back in, and Athrun steeled himself.

The Infinite Justice shook as the Nebula Blitz's saber slammed down onto its beam shield. Athrun scowled, throwing the Nebula Blitz's arm aside and stabbing forward with his own saber. The pilot of the Nebula Blitz deflected Athrun's saber with his own beam shield, even as the Gale Strike Gundam came charging forward, charging up its Multi-phase cannon.

"I've had enough of this!" The pilot of the Regen Duel shouted. "Just die already!"

Athrun somersaulted over the Regen Duel's head as the pilot fired his rail rifle and rail bazooka, the pair of hyper-velocity shells blazing down underneath the Infinite Justice's feet. Athrun whirled around, swinging his saber towards the Regen Duel's back, but the pilot whirled around and stopped the glowing blade with his shield, surging forward and throwing the Infinite Justice back. The Regen Duel switched to its beam rifle, even as the rail bazooka and rail rifle raised to aim towards the Infinite Justice.

Suddenly, an ear-piercing, grating screech filled the area, as the purple form of Evangelion Unit 01 sped onto the battlefield, the thinly scattered molecules beginning to distort as the sound gradually doubled in intensity.

Inside the Infinite Justice's cockpit, Athrun covered his ears as he winced in pain at the shrill shriek which had begun to assault his senses, he couldn't understand how sound was traveling in the vacuum of space, much less why it was so loud.

Finally, the ear-shattering shriek reached its apex, as a bright white light suddenly flashed out from the body of the purple beast. An instant later the Gale Strike, Nebula Blitz, Nix Providence and Regen Duel Gundams lost power, their eyes going dark.


	92. Third Impact Part 3

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 92**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

A vast portion of the Earth had been devestated by Third Impact. Despite the fact that Third Impact had begun in only a single timeline, once it had been initiated, its effects were quick to spread. Japan itself, along with everything within a 100 mile radius of the country was completely uninhabitable.

"Why would anyone want to cause something like Third Impact?" Kira Yamato asked himself as he stood in one of the Excalibur's many crew lounges, looking out the window at the devastated planet below.

Meanwhile, the restored warship Katsuragi was speeding through space. The purple-rimmed vessel was rapidly heading towards the Earth, from where it had been restored on the Moon.

"Two dozen Earth Alliance Pangea-class super carriers now in range, it appears as though they are being escorted by three dozen ships of various classes." Lexi suddenly announced on the bridge. "Heat signatures suggest they're all getting ready to launch mobile suits."

The Alliance Pangea-class super carriers were roughly the same size and shape as ZAFT's own class of super carrier; the Gondwana-class. Although the Alliance claimed that the Pangea-class was a completely original design, it was in reality nothing more than a reverse-engineered Gondwana-class.

In the Katsuragi's captain's chair, Misato glanced over at Asuka. "Weapon and mobile suit status?"

"Tristans charged, Isolde loaded, Tannhäuser charge at 68 percent." The red-haired woman answered. "And all of our mobile suits are ready for launch."

Misato fixed her sight on the ship in the lead. "Then let's draw some blood. Tristans, Isolde, target the Pangeas and fire!"

With a great rumble through its decks, the Katsuragi let loose a blistering volley of firepower. The shells lanced forward and smashed through the first Pangea's prow, knocking it backward as though it had been struck by a fist. As the first carrier listed to one side before exploding from within, the Tristans opened up next on the two carriers on the first's flanks, ripping through both with a blaze of fire.

"Oh, kickass!" Luna cried, pumping her fist in the air. "That's never worked before!"

"Arthur, maintain course." Misato ordered. "Parsifal launchers, stand by; we'll let them come to us."

In the cockpit of the Twilight Gundam, staring out the Katsuragi's open portside catapult, Lunamaria Hawke swallowed the knot of fear in her throat. She was surrounded by allies, her friends and family onboard the Katsuragi, but even so, they were staring a massive Earth Alliance fleet in the face. The enemy's mobile suits were already launching from the carriers and the escort ships were closing in.

Lexi's face appeared on the Twilight's auxiliary screen, and she flashed a cocky grin. "Twilight, you're all clear. Kick some ass out there, Luna."

Luna smiled back and took the Twilight's controls. "Lunamaria Hawke, Twilight Gundam, launching!"

The catapult fired, the engines roared, and the crimson-colored Twilight Gundam roared into the void.

Pressure suddenly sliced across Rau Le Creuset's consciousness like a knife, and he lit up with an eager grin as he whirled the Legend Gundam around. Mere Strike Daggers, Windams, CGUEs, GuAIZs, GOUFs and ZAKUs piloted by regular pilots were an adequate appetizer, but what approached now was the main course. It appeared to be the original ZGMF-X42S Destiny Gundam. Little did Rau know, however, that the machine charging towards him was actually the Eclipse Gundam, with the holoshroud projecting the Destiny's form over its armor.

"Downgrading to the Destiny, are you?" He cackled, and turned to bring his rifle to bear. The Destiny darted around his blasts with characteristic nimbleness and returned his fire, and Rau eagerly stashed his rifle in favor of a beam javelin. Sword fighting was far more fun anyway.

The Eclipse jerked up as Rau tore apart its beam rifle, and retaliated with a saber strike against the Legend's beam shield. "So, I've finally found you." Shinn snarled. "I've finally got you cornered!"

Rau simply chuckled and surged forward, throwing the Eclipse back. The blue mobile suit lashed out with its right leg, kicking the Legend across the face; before Shinn could make good of the opening, Rau stabbed the javelin forward and deflected his killing saber stroke.

"The Alliance will be destroyed, even if you aren't." Shinn shot back. "And even if you survive, you will be hunted by God himself!"

Rau grinned as the Legend launched its DRAGOON units. "I've heard that before." Shinn growled in fury and stormed forward, his wings of light flaring into existence.

"You people don't understand what you've done!" The pilot of an IWSP Windam cried, as the Alliance machine streaked towards the Twilight Gundam, beam rifle blazing. "You're messing up the entire world! So I'll kill you!"

"Try it!" Luna shot back, knocking the Windam back as it charged for a swordfight. The IWSP Windam rose up behind her and she turned to face it.

Instead, her instinct rippled up through her and she went the Twilight diving to the side, just as a pulsing wave of red energy blew off the Windam's Striker pack and right arm. The smoking, ruined machine went plummeting through the blackness.

Luna darted aside again to dodge another blast, this one clearly aimed at her, and cringed at the hulking form of a Zamzazah mobile armor speeding in from the blackness.

The Zamzazah's eyes flashed and it turned its guns towards the Twilight, forcing Luna back on the defensive.

"Julian, what the hell?!" The pilot of another Windam, this one bearing an Aile Striker, yelled. "Check your fucking fire! You took down Merau!"

Heedless, the Zamzazah barreled forward, beam cannons blazing. Luna scowled at it as she dodged its blasts.

"I guess I'll have to take care of you, too!"

Shinn yawned as the Eclipse effortlessly dodged the ceaseless hail of shimmering beam blasts spewing forth from the Legend's DRAGOON units. "Come on." The raven-haired man taunted. "You've got to do better than this if you want to take us down."

"Shut up!" Rau roared, even as he continued to swarm his DRAGOONs around the Eclipse. The masked man thought that he might be able to hit the blue mobile suit if he moved his remote weapons closer and boxed it in. But it was not to be, as the Eclipse unexpectedly reached out, grabbing two of the swarming DRAGOON units out of the blackness and smashing them together.

"These things will make a perfect snack for our newest mobile suit." Shinn smirked as he threw the two disabled weapons towards the Katsuragi.

In the cockpit of the modified Evangelion Unit 01, staring out the Minerva's open starboardside catapult, Shinji Ikari, watched as a pair of severely damaged DRAGOON units tumbled towards him through the void. "Shinji Ikari, Evangelion Unit 01, launching!"

The catapult fired, the engines rumbled, and the purple beast known as Evangelion Unit 01 sped onto the battlefield. As it did, Shinji contacted the resident soul within his Evangelion Unit, the soul of his own mother, the soul of Yui Ikari.

_'Mother.'_ Shinji mentally spoke, even as the blood red form of Evangelion Unit 02, now nestled within the menacing confines of a METEOR unit, pulled alongside him.

_'Let's kick some ass, Shinji!'_ The voice of Yui Ikari resounded within her son's mind, causing a confident smirk to cross his lips. _'Oh, food!'_ Yui's voice gleefully added as Evangelion Unit 01 snatched the pair of DRAGOON units out of the blackness and eagerly devoured the weapons. A few seconds later, Evangelion Unit 01's shoulder pylons unexpectedly shot off with a burst of exhaust, the knee guards following suit an instant later. Once they were clear of the Evangelion Unit, both of the shoulder pylons split into three seperate pieces, the pieces of the two shoulder pylons now vaugely resembeling the DRAGOON units utilized by the Legend Gundam.

As the purple Evangelion Unit launched its newly acquired remote weapons, the attacking Earth Alliance ships slipped away, the fleet staying just outside the sensor range of the Katsuragi and its mobile suits.

"Where the hell did that enemy fleet go?!" Shinji yelled, as Evangelion Unit 01 twisted around enemy fire and pounded off a salvo of beam blasts from its recently acquired DRAGOON units. The blasts pounded against the shields of a Windam squad up ahead, but a Doppelhorn Windam among their ranks lunged up over the smoke and answered with a blast of its own to throw the purple beast back. "Dammit! This thing's too slow in space!"

One of the Windams lanced up from below, beam saber held high, and claimed Evangelion Unit 01's right arm at the elbow. Shinji jetted backwards and let loose a cloud of missiles in the Windam's face to blow it apart, only for another Windam to streak down from above and slice off his left leg at the knee with its saber.

"Shinji! Three o'clock!" Asuka's voice screamed. Shinji shot his eyes to the right, just as another Windam opened fire and blew off what was left of the his right arm.

"Goddammit!" Two more Windams appeared, rifles leveled off, and the three Windams took aim. "I don't think so!"

The Windams opened fire, and Shinji smashed his hand down on one of the switches. With a burst of steam, Evangelion Unit 01's armor broke off in a cloud around the unit itself, and Shinji jammed back the controls just as the searing energy beams sliced through the armor pieces and blew them apart.

With a scream, Shinji charged out of the smoke and drove his progressive sword into the leading Windam's cockpit. The remaining two darted to the sides and one of them hurled an anti-armor penetrator down towards him. Shinji's eyes went wide and he pulled back on both control sticks hard, the penetrator jammed itself into Evangelion Unit 01's left shoulder and detonated, blowing off the arm, and the world went dark for Shinji Ikari.

At the same time, a single Murasame launched from the Katsuragi. The Murasame was pure white in color and displayed a large, red cross on each wing, with another large, red cross on its shield; clearly identifying it a medical unit.

A blood red energy beam suddenly coursed through the battlefield and blew one of the Windams apart, followed by the darting gunbarrels of a Proto Chaos to pick off the other, and Asuka's crimson Evangelion Unit 02 floated over to the now mutilated form of Evangelion Unit 01. "Shinji, damn you, if you die in there I'll kick your ass!" The blood red Evangelion Unit turned its eyes towards another Windam team on the approach, and it reared back and kicked the purple beast in the other direction. "Lexi! Get Shinji back to the Katsuragi!"

"Right!" Lexi answered, as the white Murasame dropped in to catch the damaged Evangelion Unit, before then taking off towards the winged warship.

"Don't let your anger cloud your judgment, Asuka." Lunamaria warned from within the Twilight Gundam. "These men are well-trained."

Asuka snarled in fury as she watched the enemies open fire. "These fuckers don't know what they're dealing with!"

With an ear-splitting shriek, the Eclipse Gundam plunged its anti-ship sword through one of the Windams and let it explode in a fiery flash. Three more lined up for a beam rifle barrage, with a Buster Dagger between them; Shinn darted up above, blinding them all with a flurry of afterimages, and before either could react he stormed into the center of their formation and slashed the right-hand Windam in half. The Buster Dagger jetted backward and pounded the Destiny with a point-blank blast to throw the Gundam back; the Windams followed it up with a barrage of beam rifle blasts that sliced through the afterimages.

Shinn glanced over his shoulder. "Luna, now!"

A tower of fire rose up from behind one of the destroyed Earth Alliance warships and a hail of missiles came streaking down out of the black sky, blowing one of the Windams apart. The Buster Dagger jerked to the side, switched its rifle, and fired the high energy cannon into the wreckage, but too late, as the Destiny rushed in to chop it in half. Luna's Twilight Gundam roared out of hiding and pounded the shields of both Windams with beam blasts, just in time for another shot to come streaking out of nowhere and slam through the right-hand Windam's cockpit. And as that one exploded, Shinn shot down upon the last Windam and ripped it in half with his sword.

Nearly thirty miles away, the sleek form of the Earth Alliance Soveregin-class warship Charlemagne, along with the other 49 ships which had launched the unprovoked attack on the Celestial Being warship Katsuragi, silently floated in the inky void as the crews waited for the end of the battle, and the destruction of the purple-rimmed Minerva-class warship.

Ivan Danilov studied the scene before him. Flashes of light flickered up from somewhere in the distance, poking out of the blackness, but if the tactical map was any indication, the battle was going well for the attack forces. Perhaps the Charlemagne's presence would not be needed.

"Heat sources, captain!" The sensor officer suddenly cried, and a moment later the Charlemagne rattled as missiles came streaking out of the blackness. Danilov looked up in disbelief.

"CIWS, respond! Jason, find the sources, now! Ronald, weapons on standby!"

Immediately, the bridge rattled as missiles and beams slammed into the Charlemagne's hull, and a moment later, space in front of the bridge flickered and three N Dagger Ns materialized and rocketed away to safety.

"N Daggers?!" Jason exclaimed as the trio of machines appeared on the sensor screen. "How the hell did Celestial Being get those?!"

Danilov's eyes searched the space before his ship, and they went wide in disbelief as he caught sight of no less than ten warships fading into existence. "Ronald, target those warships! It's an enemy combat fleet! Open fire!"

The Charlemagne quaked as its Gottfried cannons opened fire, but the blasts dissipated a moment later and for the first time, Danilov noticed a strange greenish tint to the area surrounding the fleet. He felt his heart stop.

"Our blasts were stopped cold, sir." Ronald answered from the weapons console. "Enemy warships seem to have released anti-beam depth charges."

"The Valiants, then! Target the enemy fleet!" Vera shouted.

"Impossible, the control circuits have been disabled!"

"Then send out our mobile suits!" Danilov ordered.

"The catapults aren't responding, sir!" Sheila exclaimed from the mobile suit deck console. "We'll have to open the doors manually, and by then the enemy fleet will be long gone!"

"Then, Connie." Danilov went on with a growl. "Get us a line to Admiral Mathis. Tell him that a Celestial Being Fleet is coming up on his position from the rear."

"Sir, the communication channels aren't responding!" Connie protested. "We're being jammed!"

"Jammed?!" Danilov sputtered.

"Searching for the source of the interference now!"

Danilov stared ahead in disbelief, and the pieces came together in his mind. They had used those N Daggers to get close enough to launch a devastating surprise attack to disable his weapons and stymie his mobile suits, then covered their own escape with anti-beam depth charges, while jamming his communications somehow. That was the Celestial Being Fleet; that was their professionalism and skill, disabling his mighty, unsuspecting battleship while they slipped into the fray, from behind the position of the attack force.

Danilov looked back towards the Celestial Being Fleet, as they sped towards their comrades.


	93. Freedom and Conflict

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 93**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

Kira helped Yumi get through the tiny aisle to their seats. He and Yumi had been touring the Orb government center when they had heard about this important political rally that was being held in the high council chamber that night. Not having anything better to do, and quite interested in Orb politics, Yumi had wheedled Kira into reserving some of the last seats available, up near the top of the gallery. They had gone out to an early dinner at one of the many restaurants scattered throughout the government district before arriving almost two hours early to make sure they got their seats. As it was, they were lucky they did not arrive ten minutes later, since the gallery was almost entirely filled when they got there.

"Everyone does seem very excited." Yumi commented, looking around. Kira merely shrugged agreement. He'd eaten a lot at dinner and frankly wasn't too interested in this whole speech thing. He'd been planning on something a little more exciting as a cap to the day's fun, something along the lines of a private moonlight walk along the beach and maybe a little more besides, but that whole fantasy had been derailed when Yumi had asked to go to this speech. Given how long winded politicians tended to be, Kira was sure they'd be lucky to get back to the hotel by 3:00 AM, given that the speech in question was starting at 8:00 PM and it was a good two hour drive from the government center to their hotel.

"You don't seem very excited though." Yumi noted with some concern. "Anything wrong?"

_'Hmm...besides the fact that I'm feeling full and not just a little amorous, but can't do anything about it because of all the crowds, no.'_ Kira thought darkly. "Just a little too much to eat at dinner." He replied.

"I told you it was too much."

"Yes, you did." Kira agreed before lapsing off into silence again.

"You're bored aren't you?" Yumi asked. Kira started. He never thought he was that transparent.

"We don't have to stay for the speech." Yumi began.

"No!' Kira cut her off. "You wanted to stay for the speech, and it's about time that we did stuff you wanted to do. You always give in to me. I'll admit that I may not be as interested in this as you, but I can take a few hours of fidgeting in my seat, as long as we're together. That's the important thing, that we're together."

"You're determined to have me assert myself, aren't you?" Yumi said with a giggle. "You'd better be careful or I'll start ordering you around. Just because I'm polite doesn't mean I don't have a practical side too."

"Believe me, I am well aware of that." Kira replied. A mechanical grinding caused him to look up. "Hey, look at that. They're retracting the roof. I guess they think the weather is nice enough for an open sky meeting."

"I guess you get a portion of your moonlight walk, without the walking part of course." Yumi observed.

"How...?" Kira asked, his jaw dropping open.

"I noticed several hints, wanting to eat an early dinner, planning on getting back to the hotel before dark and you looked at the page of the brochure that talked about romantic sites to see." Yumi informed him.

"I didn't know I was under such tight scrutiny."

"You find it surprising that I can't take my eyes off you?" Yumi breathed, snuggling as close as their seats would allow, resting her head on his shoulder.

"That's a conversation ender if I ever heard one." Kira mumbled.

They remained in that position for the next hour and a half, whispering nothings to each other, ocasionally sneaking small kisses and generally disturbing everyone around them without noticing in the slightest.

"Attention! The distinguished guest from the Atlantic Federation War Council will be taking the podium soon. We wish to thank you all for your patience and we wish to express our gratitude for the interest you have displayed in the workings of your national government." A speaker nearby crackled slightly with static, most non-Coordinators would never have heard it. Kira and Yumi both sat up attentively in their seats. The minutes ticked by like hours, the packed gallery host to hundreds of whispered conversations. The energy and tension in the room was almost visible. Kira felt himself suddenly becoming interested, almost against his will. Finally the appointed time came. Almost instantly, the doors onto the floor of the council chamber opened and a regal man indeed walked confidently out. He was dressed in the very finest business suit, but that was nothing special amongst politicians. Rather, what drew the gaze of not only the council members but those of the people in the gallery were the accoutrements.

The man was tall and broad shouldered and though plainly well past his sixtieth birthday, the man walked tall and proud, without the slightest hint of a limp. His white walking cane seemed more a flourish than anything else, and the large yellow gemstone affixed to the top caught many eyes with its golden sparkle. A full head of snow white hair descended down past his shoulders and a similarly white moustache and goatee contrasted starkly with the tanned skin of his face. His eyes seemed to glow with an inner fire and Kira felt an electric jolt when he managed to catch a full on gaze into the man's yellow eyes. Yumi let out a small gasp next to him.

"He certainly has a presence." Yumi noted. The entire crowd, probably more than one-thousand people, had gone stock still and silent from the moment the man had walked into the room. Kira couldn't help but agree. This was no government drone. This man radiated power.

"My friends!" The man said, in a voice that needed little amplification to reach Kira and Yumi way up at the top of the gallery. "My friends! My name is Cervantes Robotnik. I am the head of Cosmos Weapon Manufacturers...no relation to Blue Cosmos." Cervantes announced ringingly. The crowd laughed nervously, caught a bit off guard. Kira and Yumi looked at each other in shock.

"I have come before you, the people of Orb, today as an emissary from the Atlantic Federation, with all the proper fanfare that implies." Cervantes continued with a smile. More laughter from the audience, genuine this time.

"Despite my position on the Atlantic Federation War Council, I have not come before you today with grim tidings of war and destruction. Instead, I have brought rays of new hope for you, the people of Orb. What is this hope, you ask? Well, before I reveal to you that, let us first take a candid look at Orb as it is today. Orb survived the war, but it was a close thing. No one can deny that. War is hell, simply put. Orb lost much, more than many. Your resource colony; Heliopolis, was destroyed several months into the war. Followed, a few months later, by the destruction of your mass driver and the unlawful occupation of your peaceful country. An occupation that was quickly rescinded, but the pain of that wound is not quickly forgotten. Am I not telling the truth?" Cervantes expounded. The crowd roared a garbled response, mostly consisting of people agreeing with him. Most were ecstatic to discover a politician who could talk straight and dirty, getting right to the heart of the matter, not beating around the bush and mouthing meaningless mush.

"Because of these tragedies..." Cervantes began to pace back and forth on the podium, using his cane to accentuate important words by either thrusting it upwards or cracking it down onto the floor. "These despicable tragedies, your nation's economy has been completely crippled. Sad, I know. Painful, I have absolutely no doubt. But those are the simple facts. And as if that wasn't bad enough, you are also in the process of reconstructing your military, as is the right of any sovereign nation. You barely had the time to bury the heroes of the last war and barely had the mourning properly begun when calamity struck once again!" Cervantes cried, slamming his cane down on the word 'calamity'.

"If your proud, beneficent nation had had strong leadership, perhaps you might have been able to sort through the wreckage and rise from the ashes, like the legendary phoenix. However..." Cervantes beat his cane so hard against floor that Kira expected it to split in half. "However, you were betrayed in your time of need! Instead of working with you to rebuild this great nation, your leaders concentrated on themselves! They enriched themselves! They hid things from the public! They engaged in scandalous and illegal affairs and attempted to hide them from the eyes of the public in their shame! They sought to use the peace process for their own ends, not considering in the slightest how their warping would affect the people of their great nation and indeed the people of the entire world!" Cervantes was in full flow now, roaring his speech, stomping back and forth, swinging his cane like a madman, and preaching to the crowd, reaching out to the crowd, practically glowing with energy and conviction. The high council members were looking decidedly uncomfortable at this flaming and direct critique.

"As a result of this criminal and immoral conduct, world confidence in Orb has been dealt a truly staggering blow. The peace talks, our one final hope for the security of the future have all but collapsed! Is that the fault of Orb? NO! Is that the fault of the PLANTs? NO! It is the sole fault of your leaders. You have already taken a step in the right direction, people of Orb. You have arrested and confined those whose falsities and scandals so harmed your great nation previously. But there is so much more that can be done!" Cervantes paused for a drink of water. The crowd in the gallery was going nuts, eating his words up like fine food.

"Holy fucking shit." Kira muttered. Yumi nodded agreement. Rarely had she seen such a competent speaker, and never one so fired up. Even Siegel Clyne, Lacus Clyne's father, in his frequent pleas for diplomatic negations, hadn't been this bombastic.

"PEOPLE OF ORB! Your feet are on the right path. You only require direction. My nation, the Atlantic Federation, is willing to offer you that direction as well as a great deal more. We are willing to forgive the transgressions of the individuals and re-welcome the proud nation of Orb into the circle of nations. We will help you rebuild your nation. We offer trade, economic benefits, political support and disaster relief. What do we ask in return? Only what you would do anyway! Cast off the filthy chains your slanderous leaders have confined you in! Tear away the veil of lies and untruths that they have blinded you with! Step forward as a people and do the right thing!" Cervantes pleaded, his eyes practically alight.

"Cast these false leaders down from their pedestals and allow new leaders to rise, leaders who have the best interests of the people of Orb in their hearts and minds, not the sick desire for personal gain or worse, the desire to plunge to world back into the dark times of war. Impossible, you say. Never, you shout. Oh, how little you know. But I will reveal to you a great truth that will cast the ray of light into the darkness. Here, in this report gathered by the free media of the world, I have conclusive proof that your current leader, Cagalli Yula Attha entered into a binding contract with the ZAFT military suppliers to create an entire new generation of death machines, created expressly for the purpose of killing the people of Earth. Each of these machines would have netted Ms. Cagalli Yula Attha the tidy sum of twenty billion dollars. Not just a little retirement fund." Cervantes paused, as if waiting for laughter or comments, but if there were any it couldn't be heard in the ruckus.

Everyone was on their feet now, shouting and screaming, some in denial, some in support. Cervantes turned up his microphone. "It's all in this report! Verified by several independent sources. It will be made available in its entirety after my speech. Now, Ms. Cagalli Yula Attha cannot be blamed for this fiasco. Not entirely anyway. The only blames that can be placed on the dear girl's shoulders is a shocking lack of concern for her nation's well being and a disgusting degree of infatuation with a foul manipulator. Yes, I speak of none other than the son of that ZAFT demon who nearly destroyed the world. The son of Patrick Zala. The one and only Athrun Zala. Athrun Zala warped your kind-hearted princess. He twisted her to his own evil ends. Unsatisfied with his father's failed plan to annihilate the Earth via the Genesis laser, Athrun Zala turned to subterfuge to accomplish his ends. He seduced your princess over the course of several months, before then entering into a sham marriage with her, quite illegally mind you. Athrun Zala used his intimate acquaintance with the dear Ms. Cagalli Yula Attha to arrange this heinous contract and to undermine the peace talks. For you see, as the nuclear attacks in Hawaii have demonstrated, the PLANTs had no intention of keeping the peace. Pearl Harbor, not just the military base, but thousands of civilians as well, have been annihilated. Scoured from the surface of the Earth by nuclear weapons...the very thing that the PLANTs claim to hate so much." Cervantes lowered his voice so it was practically a whisper. The crowd was as silent as a hall of mutes.

Kira felt like he'd been punched in the gut. The venomous hatred evident in Cervantes's every word and gesture was like a physical attack.

"The loss of Pearl Harbor is a blow, a blow indeed. But it has shown the world what the words of those traitorous bastards in the PLANTs are worth! Pleading mercy and forgivness on one hand, while readying a sucker punch with the other! We will not fall because of a single blow! We will not let them win so easily! NO, we will stand strong and tall against the onslaught of darkness, the darkness hiding in space, glowering down upon us with claws of nuclear fire. We will stand together! Will you, the people of Orb stand with us?" Cervantes held his arms out in a beseeching gesture. Nobody in the crowd said anything. A terrible silence fell on what seemed to be the entire nation. Kira twisted around suddenly in his seat, searching the sky.

"What is it?" Yumi breathed, concentrating on Cervantes.

"Thrusters. Mobile suit thrusters. Closing fast." Kira replied. Barely had the words left his mouth when other audience members began to notice the sound too. Soon the noise grew to a steady rumble, then a low roar. Finally, less than a minute later it built to a sky shaking thunder and seconds after that it seemed to drown out the world. Cervantes turned his microphone up as high as it could go, and Kira could still barely hear him.

"I present to you, the people of Orb, proof of the Atlantic Federation's good will! An undeniable presence has graced our ranks with his presence. A presence that is more than familiar to you, the people of Orb!" Cervantes bellowed. At that moment the mobile suit became visible, diving straight down from above the council building. Even at the distance of more than a mile, if closing rapidly, the mobile suit was unmistakable.

It was the ZGMF-X10A Freedom Gundam

"The Freedom!" The cry came from one of the audience.

"Freedom! The Freedom has come back!" The chant spread through the crowd like wildfire.

"Who's in that?" Yumi asked. Kira couldn't hear her, although he was thinking the exact same thing. The last time he'd seen the ZGMF-X10A Freedom Gundam was more than two millenia ago, just prior to its destruction at the hands of the ZGMF-X56S Impulse Gundam.

"Freedom!" The crowd cheered.

"Yes, the Freedom!" Cervantes cried back. "The Freedom, the mobile suit that so heroically fought to save your great nation durig the last war, has returned. Listen to what the Freedom has to say!"

Static crackled from the Freedom's external speakers. "People of Orb. The last time I was in this fine nation, we were all fighting desperately. For truth. For honor. For Orb. I helped protect Orb from its enemies, though in the end they were too many and I was forced to retreat. But I have returned. Returned to ask that you, the great people of Orb, stand with me! Stand with us all! Stand against the darkness in space! Stand against ZAFT aggression! Stand against your false leaders. For your own Freedom!"

"Freedom!" The crowd echoed back.

"Freedom!" The man in Kira's old mobile suit called again.

"Freedom!" The crowd screamed, entirely out of control.

Even the law enforcement officers were in on it, shouting and gesturing as much as the civilians they were supposed to be controlling. The only people who weren't going crazy with fervor were the Orb high council members, who were trying to shout Cervantes down, and Kira and Yumi, who were in total disbelief.

"PEOPLE OF ORB!" Cervantes bellowed, taking the crowd back from his accomplice. "At this very moment an Atlantic Federation relief fleet is steaming into ports all over Orb! They bring supplies! They bring relief! They are your brothers and sisters, standing together with you, the people of Orb, for Freedom! How do we welcome them?"

"FREEDOM!" The crowd roared back. Cervantes smiled.

"There are those in this room who seek to take your freedom from you! They would have you go back into the darkness, back into servitude of their twisted schemes! Will you let them!"

"NO!"

"Will you do nothing?"

"NO!"

"Will you help me cast them down so you may be free, free to stand amongst the people of the world once again? Bind them in those chains they sought to bind you with! Blind them with their own veils of hatred! Step forth into the light and welcome your brothers and sisters of humanity! Stand for humanity! Stand for freedom! Stand for Orb!" Cervantes roared.

"FREEDOM! ORB! FREEDOM!" The crowd screamed, overflowing from their seats and pouncing upon the council members in mobs. The police did nothing to stop them, indeed more than a few led the charge.

"We need to get out of here." Kira said, grabbing Yumi by the arm. The Freedom reached down and Cervantes climbed into its palm. He was held over the boiling crowd, shouting down at them like a vision from hell, or heaven, depending on your viewpoint. Kira forced his way through the morass of people, dragging Yumi behind him. He was forced to resort to some of the unarmed fighting techniques, which he had learned over the past few millenia, in order to get to the doors.

"This is scary." Yumi said, quite calm as she surveyed the riot from the doors. "I've never seen people so inflamed. I had no idea things were this tense in Orb. All it took was that man, Cervantes Robotnik. Just one spark and the whole country is aflame."

"He's a hell of a big spark. And the Freedom Gundam, that was the clincher right there. When whoever is in the cockpit endorsed him. That man, Cervantes, he's pretty much won, for now at least. It makes me sick, how all the good things I do seem to get twisted back on me and my friends." Kira growled, before quickly restraining his anger. "We need to get out of here though, Yumi. This place isn't safe."

Yumi nodded agreement and together they fled from the council chambers, the sound of the vicious riot taking a very long time to fade from their ears.

"That man is a devil in human form." Asuka Langley Soryu gasped, still caught up in the almost tangible fury that had been flowing out of the television screen. She had been sitting in her quarters onboard the Celestial Being warship Katusaragi, channel surfing after a long, boring watch on the bridge.

"Well, this is fucking wonderful. Orb has just welcomed Blue Cosmos into its heart with open arms." Misato Katusaragi commented darkly from the bridge of the Minerva-class warship Katusaragi.

"He certainly knows how to give a good rousing speech. I hate to admit it, but I was almost caught up with the whole thing for a bit there." Shinn Asuka said.

"It just goes to show that hatred and fear really are the two greatest binding forces in the universe." Lexi Yamato's holographic image added morosely.

"That was cynical enough to hurt." Shinn replied.

"Can you deny it though, given what just happened?" Lexi asked.

"Well, fear and hatred themselves have little binding force. But when stirred up and fed fuel like the rhetoric and bombast Cervantes was spewing, then you are totally right. He went right for the primal instincts in modern man; when there's a problem, blame the people in charge. Do everything you can to avoid taking responsibility yourself. Go for the quick and easy solution. Take the helping hand, without considering what you will be expected to give in return at some point in the future. There's no such thing as a free lunch, after all." Shinn responded.

"Everyone's living for the moment, without a thought for the future. A relief fleet? I highly doubt that! Occupation forces are much more likely. Bringing food, medical supplies and helping hands, without even bothering to mention the mobile suits, tanks, guns and munitions. It's depressing how so few people are willing to look beneath the surface of what's really happening around them." Lexi put in.

"He knew all the right strings to pull in order to get people to not look below the surface. They're all concentrating on Cagalli and Athrun and the PLANTs. Cervantes played those cards well. Let's hope Athrun never falls into Orb's hands after that speech; he'll be lucky if they don't crucify him." Misato said.

"Yeah, that was really a smooth move on his part. He absolved Cagalli of nearly all the blame, since she's still really popular in Orb. He made her out to be an innocent victim of Athrun and the PLANTs. And of course, there will be many who won't bother to look beyond the Zala part of Athrun's name, as they'll be more than willing to blame the son for the sins of the father." Shinn mused. A phone rang suddenly. Shinn quickly picked up his cell phone and listened for a few moments.

"Yeah, we saw it too. It's all over the television, on practically every channel. Yeah, we saw the whole thing. Okay, we'll be waiting for you. Glad you two made it out okay. See you guys in an hour. Be careful." Shinn finally ended the call and turned to the rest of of the bridge crew. "That was Kira. He and Yumi got a pair of nose bleed seats at the high council chamber. They were there in person during the entire thing. They managed to get out after the crowd erupted into a riot and jumped the councilers. They're on their way back to the Excalibur now, but things are slow, of course."

"Glad they made it out safely." Misato said.

"Cervantes was kind enough to leave his Blue Cosmos dogma out of the whole thing, for the moment anyway. No one paid any real attention to two kids, even Coordinator kids." Shinn replied. He went over to the bridge windows and looked out at the blue Earth below. On the view screen, dozens of troop and cargo ships from the Earth Alliance Pacific fleet were already pulling into Orb's docks as the Katusaragi's bridge crew watched from high above, the Alliance ships unloading thousands of troops and hundreds of tons of supplies. Strike Daggers moved along the docks, toting cargo containers like men would carry crates. "They're well organized. They had this whole thing planned."

"So, what are we supposed to do?" Misato asked.

"Kira told me that the Katusaragi is to go to Condition Red and assume a stationary orbit above Orb until the Excalibur ascends." Shinn answered.


	94. The Path to Peace

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 94**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

"What a bunch of idiots." Kira Yamato scowled from the Excalibur's bridge as the warship's engines suddenly flared to life, swiftly propelling the dagger-shaped vessel out of its custom dock in the Orb shipyard. The huge ship was quick to clear the surface of the ocean, lifting into the sky and igniting its wings of light, rapidly gaining altitude as it moved to rendezvous with the Katusaragi.

As the Excalibur's bow continued to effortlessly slice through the clouds, Lexi's holographic image suddenly appeared on the bridge, her face contorted in worry and alarm. "Kira, we have an unauthorized launch from the central hanger! It's the Akatsuki Gundam!"

Before Kira could reply, the Excalibur shuddered slightly, a large explosion billowing from the centerline catapult doors as a searing green energy blast from the Akatsuki's beam rifle pierced the armor. An instant later, the muted shriek of twisting metal was heard as the golden machine kicked the catapult doors from their hinges and bolted out of the now unprotected launch bay. Before streaking back towards Orb, the Akatsuki Gundam grabbed the now mangled launch bay doors from where they lay on the deck, taking the two sheets of super high strength alloy with it, the pilot clearly intending to use the huge slabs of metal as blunt weapons.

The glowing golden seed fell before Cagalli's eyes, and with a crash her machine landed at the Morgenroete mobile suit testing grounds. An instant later, the Akatsuki had smacked an MBF-M1 Astray with one of the Excalibur's launch bay doors, effectively pulverizing the machine. The golden mobile suit then threw the remaining door like a frisbee, watching as the huge slab of metal winged its way through the air before slicing into a nearby air traffic control tower, sending the top five feet of the building plummeting to the ground to vanish within a large cloud of debris. Cagalli then noticed a single MVF-M11C Murasame charging towards her, its beam saber alight. Without any hesitation, she seized the shoulder of the charging machine, tossed it around her own mobile suit, and threw it into a group of parked tanker trucks filled with extremely flammable mobile suit fuel. As the pilot of the Murasame tried desperately to keep his machine on its feet, the glowing beam saber plunged into one of the tankers, instantly igniting the fuel within and surrounding the mobile suit in a massive fireball.

"Enough of this!" Cagalli shouted. "Let's see what the Akatsuki Gundam can really do!"

She threw the switch, the backpack binders opened up, and a blinding flash of golden light poured forth from the two binders on the Akatsuki's back. The wings of light shone to life with greater intensity than ever before, and everyone stared in disbelief as the Akatsuki blasted off around the battlefield, afterimages blazing behind it.

With sparks flying and metal straining, Cagalli Yula Athha's Akatsuki Gundam traded sword blows with the red and gold Gaia Gundam's beam saber over the Morgenroete mobile suit testing grounds. The Gaia slammed the Akatsuki back with an overhead sword hack, sending the Akatsuki grinding backwards through the sand. Cagalli glanced to her left and then threw the Akatsuki down onto its knee, just in time for a plasma volley from the Savior Gundam to sizzle by overhead. And an instant later, the Gaia was upon her again, forcing her back with a swift barrage of saber swings.

"Your capabilities are as expected." She grunted, her voice lacking emotion, and turned her attention towards the Savior and its massive backpack. "But yours leave much to be desired."

She vaulted off one foot over the Gaia's saber strokes and showered the red mobile suit with beam bolts, only for the Savior to come streaking in from the sun with another volley of plasma and a blast from a high-energy beam cannon on its backpack. Cagalli threw the Akatsuki to the right and let the Savior streak by, and then jammed its sword up to deflect the Gaia's sweeping saber swing.

The Savior roared up into the blue sky and transformed back to its mobile suit mode, and pounded the Akatsuki with beam rifle fire. Cagalli jerked back the controls and sent the Akatsuki into a steep dive as the Gaia and Savior pounded fire after her, and the Akatsuki spiraled through their shots. Suddenly, the Savior roared in from behind and slammed into the Akatsuki with a bone-jarring crash.

"I've had enough of this!" The pilot of the Savior growled, and the Savior backed away and rose up into the sky as the Gaia leveled off its beam rifle.

Cagalli screamed as the Akatsuki charged forward with a blaze of afterimages and a brilliant flash from the wings of light, and the pilot of the Gaia had barely enough time to blink before the Akatsuki had torn the beam rifle from his hand and sent the Gaia crashing into the dust with a tooth-rattling kick to the face and another to the torso before delivering a devestating kick to its head, the kick being powerful enough to send the Gaia sliding through the sand. The Savior fired a cloud of missiles, but the Akatsuki merely raised an open palm towards the incoming projectiles, and sent them veering off course and into the ground. The pilot of the Savior gaped in disbelief, just before the Akatsuki was there to slam its anti-ship sword down onto the Savior's shield.

"You just don't understand!" The pilot of the Gaia roared as the Savior broke the saber clash, allowing the Gaia to charge in with its own saber. The beam sabers clashed again and the pilot of the Gaia struggled to keep up with the blindingly-fast Akatsuki Gundam. "No Natural could ever understand what we've been through!" The Gaia fell to one knee and jammed its saber up to stop a devastating sword blow from the Akatsuki. "The Naturals have been trying to destroy us for decades! With the Requiem, they came closer than ever before to actually succeeding! What are we supposed to do?"

Cagalli drove the Gaia forward with a wordless scream and then rammed the Gundam hard in the chest with her machine's right knee. The Gaia backpedaled desperately as the Akatsuki closed in, only for the Savior to let loose a storm of firepower between the two combatants and shoot by in mobile armor mode.

"Pull back!" The pilot of the Savior shouted. "Back on top!"

The Gaia vaulted off the ground and over a sweeping sword strike from the Akatsuki, and Cagalli rocketed after it. The red mobile suit slammed down onto the Savior's back and the two mobile suits rocketed around with a punishing barrage of firepower. Cagalli ground her teeth and hurled the Akatsuki through it, afterimages flying, and the two Gundams' beam blades crashed together again in a shower of sparks.

"The Coordinators have always had to fight for their right to exist." Varder snarled, as the Savior wheeled around again. "They tried to kill us all with nuclear weapons during the Valentine War and the beginning of the Junius War! They actually did with the Requiem! Why should we not take what's rightfully ours and make sure they can never threaten us again?" The blades clashed again. "Tell me!"

The Savior fired its plasma cannons and forced the Akatsuki on the defensive; Cagalli scowled up at the two mobile suits and darted through the blasts to pound the Gaia's saber and shield with her beam sword.

"You bunch of murderers!" She growled. "Killing people like they're all the same!"

"That's a laugh, coming from the likes of you people!" The pilot of the Gaia scoffed and flung the Akatsuki away, just in time for the Savior to pummel Cagalli's beam shields with beam fire.

"If you think that ZAFT should have just stayed at Mars, you're sorely mistaken!" The pilot of the Savior added with an angry snarl, and rushed in to slam the Akatsuki back with its saber. "You damned Naturals can't keep us from humanity's only home!"

"What the fuck are you morons talking about?" Cagalli shrieked as the Akatsuki lashed out with its right foot and kicked the Savior in the crotch, the blow catching the pilot off-guard and allowing the golden mobile suit to deliver a punishing backhand to the Savior's face before finally severing its legs with a pair of shells from its rail guns. "Celestial Being believes that the Earth belongs to both Naturals and Coordinators!" The Akatsuki then raised a beam cannon in its left hand and fired a searing blue-red energy blast at the Gaia, vaporizing the entire left side of the machine, while leaving the cockpit intact. "We want everlasting peace!"


	95. The Path Through Hell

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 95**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

Kira walked around one of the giant redwood trees that made up the forest which surrounded the private mansion that he shared with his family. The tree itself, along with most of the others in the forest, were wide enough for a mobile suit to play hide and seek with. The amethyst-eyed man wore a pleased expression on his face, but his happiness quickly faded into confusion when he heard a faint crackling noise, one that was familiar to him, but all the stranger for that.

"Is that fire?" Kira asked himself, puzzled, looking around for flames and seeing none.

The crackling sound, very definitely the sound of flames hungrily devouring solid, flammable materials, kept growing louder and louder and louder, coming from more and more directions at once, until it was all around them, coming from above, until it was as loud as a jet engine, to the point where regular speech became impossible. By that point in time the night gloom had been lifted, replaced with a hellish red-orange glow, as the canopy of redwood trees a hundred meters or so over their heads burst into incandescent flames, fire spreading down the tree trunks and branches like they were made from dry candle wicks!

Kira gaped upwards in shock and confusion, seeing that it was no isolated blaze; the forest canopy was on fire for as far as he could see in every direction, and it was burning like the very end of the world itself! Even from a hundred meters, the heat was enough to plaster the amethyst-eyed man with sweat and make him feel lightheaded. Without even needing to talk, he began running as fast as he could back towards the mansion, dodging sparks and falling branches, some twice the size of Kira himself, which had been turned to glowing cinders by the impossibly hot and rampant inferno. Such fallen cinders smouldered on the ground and extinguished themselves without setting the underbrush alight, even as trails of hungry fire crawled down the tree trunks like they were nothing but tinder dry deadwood.

Kira could hear, even above the roar of the conflagration, the sound of tree branches popping and snapping and splintering as they gave way beneath their own weight as the fire ate through them, and the rain of sparks and cinders became first a downpour and then a torrent, to the point where there was no way that he would be able dodge them all, just having to throw his arms and shirt over his head and run hunched over, hoping nothing big fell on him. He were still about sixty yards from the mansion's ground level entrance, leading into the main dining hall from where he he had left, his view obscured by choking smoke and falling cinders.

Kira felt a certain amount of burning and heat on his skin and within his body, but it was nothing like enough to set him alight, and in truth the oppresive heat from the forest fire was a much more pressing concern. The geneticly engineered redwood trees did not catch fire easily, but when it did, it burned hot enough to melt some metals, and it burned for a long time. But strangely, this fire burned very quickly, consuming in minutes what should have burned fiercely for nearly an entire week! Kira realized he didn't have time to sit around and ponder, because with a crack like the world splitting, the central section of the mansion's roof shattered under the strain of fire weakened sections, and over a hundred tons of wood and metal, along with thirty tons of bright pink shuttle, came crashing down to the ground in an avalanche of fire and jagged wood and metal splinters. Kira dove for cover behind another burning tree, and he was still half buried in cinders and ash when the debris struck the earth, throwing up choking clouds of smoke and dust that prevented him from even seeing his hand in front of his face!

Squeezing his eyes shut, trying to ignore the pain of scorched skin and lightly smoking hair, Kira reached out for the telepathic bond with his family, which would allow him to home in on their locations, even though he could not see, hear or smell anything but fire and smoke. He reached out for that bond and found it, trembling with fear and supressed pain, Yumi and the children coming through strong and clear from only forty meters or so away and right on his level. They must have woken up when the treetop caught fire, and headed down into the dining hall, on their way to the safety of the mansion's underground shelter. Immensely relieved, Kira sent a mental pulse of reassurance to them, telling them with far stronger intent than words that he was on his way, to the rescue, as much as anyone could be rescued in this inferno. Before Yumi could send her reply though, a huge tearing sensation of terror, horror and agony slammed through the link, and Kira felt heat against his skin like flaming wood pressed inexorably against his chest, though he was still standing in the clear at the moment. And then...the link went dead.

The telepathic link went dead, it simply disappeared! There was the terror, the pain, the fear, maybe a smidgeon of love unexpressed and then crushing darkness and oblivion and no link, no bond! Kira's eyes snapped open wide, filled with disbelief and agony beyond expression. Ever since that day, more than two millenia in the past, when he and Yumi had first returned to the living world, she had ALWAYS been in the back of his mind, a faithful presence, like the sun and the moon, felt more by their effect on everything within him, like light, like gravity, holding his world together at the seams. That presence, and the newer but no less familiar presences of Akira and Aoi, like twin torches that warmed his heart, they were gone! Snuffed out in an instant. Gone, and ripping a huge hole in his heart and soul as they left.

Kira fell to his knees in the cinders, unheeding of the fact that he was, for most intents and purposes, kneeling in a campfire, his flame retardant clothing being all that kept him from a series of third degree burns along his calves and ankles. His purple seed, veined with gold, dropped through the howling void within his mind and being, and exploded with a familiar omnipresent rush of power, vitality and awareness. But even in his Seed mode, as strong as he could possibly get without using his more divine power, something that he had vowed not to do for his own benefit, Kira could not find Yumi, Akira or Aoi within his telepathic connections. They had simply vanished! He refused to believe it of course. It couldn't happen, not to him. Not to his family. They could not be dead. It was impossible. Not in a sudden rush, during an event he did not understand and was powerless to stop. Not when he wasn't even around to be with them at the end!

He was still disbelieving it when a muted crack sounded from directly above him. Looking up, Kira's seed hazed eyes easily picked out a tumbling branch falling towards him, the branch was afire and was easily as thick as his neck. It was falling right at him, but he could easily evade it. He could dodge it just by rolling to the side, a sidestep of less than a foot. He saw exactly where it was going to go. All he had to do was not be there when it landed, in a few seconds. Kira stayed on his knees, and watched the branch come. Yumi was gone. Akira was gone. Aoi was gone. His family was gone. Why should he remain? Why should he stay behind without them? Kira was still puzzling out the answer to those questions when the branch struck him squarely on the top of the head. He barely felt the crack, as darkness and heat claimed his entire world.

The next thing he kenw, he was fully upright and running, now living in not just a nightmare but a living hell. His balance was all screwed up from the knock on his head, his skull might even be cracked, but he didn't have time to be hurt, so he staggered onward, ankles kicking through shin deep ash piles, stumbling over roots that had only been mostly burnt through, as he charged towards the manson. Or where the mansion had once been anyway. Only blackened stumps of the building remained, the stumps reaching like the fingers of a dead hand for twenty meters into the sky, just a fragment of the former majesty of the huge building.

It had still burned VERY badly though, badly enough to warp metal, melt plastic and leave everything else as cinders and ash. The roof had collapsed at some point in time, as had several walls. Frantically calling out into his oppressively silent telepathic link, Kira waded into the debris, slipping and falling and gashing his palms and chest open on protruding splinters of unburnt wood and partially melted metal, which had been under other materials and thus shielded from direct exposure to whatever had caused the fire in the first place. Seeing the unburnt debris gave Kira fresh hope. If some debris had survived, then there must be a room or two that was just buried, rather than burnt. In that room he would find his lovers and his children. Unconscious maybe. That had to be the reason he couldn't feel them. It had to be!

Kira found more than a few bodies and pieces of bodies while digging frantically through the smouldering remains, some of them so badly burned even the bones turned to dust at his touch, some more like overly barbecued cuts of meat, from where they had been spared direct exposure but trapped under fast burning pieces of roof. Undeterred, Kira continued to scoop at the still painfully hot ash with his bare hands, throwing aside partially melted metal beams and wood boards, kicking away technological debris, searching for that hidden nook, cranny or crawlspace where Yumi would have taken the kids at last resort. Where they were waiting for him to come and rescue them!

And then, as he levered away a particularly heavy half burned log twice as long as he was tall and almost as thick as his thigh, he found it. He found where Yumi had gone to ground to escape the hungry flames, Akira and Aoi huddled beneath their mother as she shielded them from the flames with her body. He found it, and his hopes, just like everything else around him, turned to ash and blew away in the wind. Kira fell to his knees, and then to his hands and knees, hot tears falling from his eyes like blood from a wound, staining the ashy ground dark. He tried to shout, tried to scream in denial, but his throat was burned raw from smoke inhalation, and he could barely even croak his soul crushing despair and distress, as he stared down at the pitiful remains. There wasn't much to see. There wasn't much left. The fire had burned fiercely here. There wasn't much to see and there was too much for him to want to see. But he could not look away.

Kira could not rationalize away the evidence which was before him. He could only stare in abject horror as the bottom dropped completely out of his world. It was a human arm, from just above the elbow down to the fingertips. Creamy pale skin, soft and silky to the touch, had turned to a lattice of black scorchmarks, sickeningly like those of meat on a grill, just much more tangled, like Yumi had pressed her arm down against a red hot waffle iron multiple times and held it there long enough to cook away skin, muscle and fat, and bare bones. It was Yumi's arm, her left arm, the bones of her humerous gritty and brittle where they poked from the grilled skin and meat just above her elbow. Most of the forearm had split open, puffy marrow protruding like half cooked marshmallow from the scorched bone. Her hand was curled into a fist by the heat, her fingers, the fingers that he stroked and stroked him in turn, so many times when his own sleep was troubled, turned to greasy sticks of charcoal.

And upon the ring finger of that hand, a bit melted, a bit warped, but still more than recognizable, was the ring. The special ring. The plain silver ring that Lacus had once given him as a token of her love, as part of a promise that he would come back to her, as he was leaving to participate in the Battle of Jachin Due. The ring he had first kissed her for, the ring that she now wore in everyday place of their wedding band. The ring that symbolized their union, their love for each other, their sworn oaths to be by each others side, to support and protect one another for all time, until death did them part. The melted, warped, scorched band of metal, sticky with bits of cooked flesh, that showed the entire world that he was a goddamned liar, that he couldn't even protect the people that meant more than life itself to him, when they needed him most.

Kira reached out with shaky hands, cupping the arm, afraid it would break apart at his touch, but the burns weren't so bad as that. Her arm had been trapped under a piece of wood or metal that had not directly caught fire, and so had been preserved, while the rest of her was nothing more than a vague outline of deeper ash amongst the rest, with two mounds where Akira and Aoi had huddled in their mother's shadow until the fire had reached them too. Kira held the arm to his chest, his entire body shaking with tears he could not shed fast enough or loud enough, kneeling among the remains of his family, his life, his love! He brought his head down and kissed the ring as gently as he could. Despite his care, flakes of smoky skin rubbed off against his lips, smearing, staining them black, leaving the taste of overcooked pork on the tip of his tongue, which was enough to make him convulse and dry heave. Underlaid by the taste of burnt meat was the familiar taste of Yumi's sweat and skin oils.

Clutching the last mortal remains of his lovers and one of the world's greatest peacemakers to his chest, sitting in the piled remains of his children, Kira pointed his face at the achingly blue sky and howled, his throat constricting and bleeding with the effort of forcing air and sound past all the smoky soot in his esophagus, his howl fading away to a deathly rattle that shook his entire body, like his soul was trying to tear itself loose from its earthly prison. He was still shouting, soundlessly, up at the sky, when his personal shuttle arrived several hours later. Kira was the only living survivor for thirty miles in any direction. Everything else had been burned to ash.

After returning to the Excalibur, Kira had decided that he would finally end all conflicts. One way or another, all conflict would be eliminated. Humanity didn't understand. They never understood. They never could understand.

Now, nearly two weeks after the still unexplained fire which had claimed the lives of Kira Yamato's lovers, the tapping of keys was the only sound in the Divinity's cockpit, where the amethyst-eyed man now sat with the keyboard folded out, as he rapidly typed. It was probably the only place on the massive ship where he had enough time alone, supposedly running diagnostics on the Divinity's OS, to actually get this done. A majority of the Excalibur's crew had a nasty way of intruding.

Kira looked at the dim reflection of himself in the Divinity's dark cockpit screens and shook his head. His eyes were more red than amethyst, and a steady stream of tears still silently made their way down his cheeks. The amethyst-eyed man jumped slightly as the cockpit hatch suddenly hissed open and an instant later, Shinn Asuka and Lunamaria Hawke stuck their heads into the now open cockpit.

"You look like a train wreck, Kira." Shinn commented flatly.

"What do you expect?" Kira asked. "I've effectively lost everything." As he continued, his voice lowered to a nearly inaudible whipser. "I've lost my lovers and my children."

"You haven't lost everything." Luna said, a friendly smile crossing her lips. "You still have us, you still have your friends."

Kira merely nodded, he hadn't really lost everything, but to him, it certainly seemed like he had.

"History is much like an endless waltz." Kira Yamato's image calmly spoke over an open-channel, all-frequency comminucations line. "The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever." He paused for a few seconds, before continuing. "The current beat; the one of war, has taken my wife from me." The amethyst-eyed man paused again, this time to stomp down his rising sadness, replacing it with anger. "And I, Kira Yamato, will usher in the beat of peace, by any means nesscary."


	96. Drifting Timelines

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 96**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

The Divinity Gundam, blazing with the distinctive blood red light of Trans-Am, screamed through the skies above Tokyo in its sleek flight mode. The angelic machine leaving an army of brightly glowing afterimages in its wake, even as hundreds of anti-aircraft rounds and beam blasts bounced off the machine's advanced armor, while flak shells exploded harmlessly all around it.

"Where the hell did the Death Star come from?" Lexi's panicked voice suddenly yelled through the speakers.

"The Death Star is here?" Shinn asked in disbelief from the cockpit of the Eclipse Gundam.

"Yes!" Lexi answered, her voice still somewhat panicked as the dagger-shaped warship opened up on the massive sphereical space station with millions of beam cannons, rail guns, missiles, flak cannons and anti-aircraft guns. "I'd be very surprised if you are unable see it from the surface."

"Yeah, about that." Luna replied as the Twilight Gundam dodged the searing yellow-orange energy blast which had been belched forth from the main cannon of the mobile armor know only as the MA-08 Big Zam. "We're kind of busy down here."

"Wait, since when was there a country called Hyrule?" Lexi asked as the Excalibur's sensors suddenly detected a new timeline on the war-torn planet below. This newly formed timeline, which apparently contained a country called 'Hyrule' was located in what had previously been the highly radioactive remains of Germany.

Within the cockpit of the Divinity, Kira closed his eyes quickly focusing on the massive form of the Death Star, then an instant later, all of the life readings from within the massive station vanished, everyone onboard having been erased from existence. "Lexi." The amethyst-eyed man called as he ignited his GN field, blocking another searing beam blast from the Big Zam. "Hack into the Death Star's computers, lower its shields and then send a boarding party over to the station."

"Understood." Lexi replied as the Excalibur's weapons fell silent, even as she hacked into the Death Star's computers, lowered its shields and transported a boarding party over to the now unoccoupied station.

"Wow, this is just sad. There aren't any mobile suits." The voice of Patrick Zala said through the communications line, nearly five minutes later. Patrick Zala was the eighteen-year-old son of Athrun Zala and Meyrin Hawke, having been named in rememberence of Athrun's own father. Patrick posessed brillant magenta-colored hair, like that of his mother, but he also posessed the piercing emerald-colored eyes of his father. "The hangers are filled with small one-man fighters."

"Those are called TIE Fighters." The voice of Luke Skywalker said through the communications line, even as his own boarding party carefully made its way into one of the Death Star's many control rooms.

"Either way." Patrick replied. "I doubt that they would stand much of a chance against any mobile suit, even one of ZAFT's first generation GINNs." After that, the two boarding parties continued to explore the massive station in reletive silence.

Meanwhile, in Earth's atmosphere, the Divinity Gundam had broken off from the fight over Tokyo, the angel-winged mobile suit transforming into its flight mode and speeding away to investigate the newly formed timeline in what had formerly been Germany.

"Kira." Lexi's voice spoke through the communications line twenty minutes later, five minutes prior to when the Divinity was estimated to enter Hylan airspace. "I'm not detecting any form of advanced technology within that country. I suggest that you reduce the Divinity Gundam to human-size and project your own image over the armor."

"Understood." Kira calmly answered, even as the angelic machine transformed back into its mobile suit mode and landed in a huge wheat field, before then shrinking down to the size of an average human and projecting the image of its pilot; Kira Yamato, over the armor. As he began to walk forward, Kira made sure that the holoshroud didn't cover either of the physical blades that he now wielded; those physical blades being the Tenseiga and Tessaiga, he also made sure that the holoshroud didn't cover the physical shield on his right forearm. "Divinity will now proceed to investigate the country identified as Hyrule."

The sentry walked his rounds just outside of Hyrule Castle. The sentry loosened his collar in the unusually stifling heat and humidity. It was fated to be his last mortal action. Suddenly his head was jerked to the side as if he had just been punched across the mouth. Blood poured from his shattered skull and splattered on the ground. The man literally never knew what hit him.

"Sentry is down." Kira Yamato said over his encrypted radio as he shifted his sniper rifle's point of aim to a neutral position, calmly waiting for more targets. Below him, between the carefully trimmed bushes which led to the main gates of the castle, two men clad in heavy armor raced forward in a coordinated advance, only to stop at the fallen form of their comrade.

As the two soldiers carefully examined the body of their dead comrade, as well as the surrounding area for the cause of their comrade's death, Kira released a single, fly-sized spy robot from his machine's left shoulder. The tiny spy robot was quick to infiltrate the castle, even as Kira himself dashed off in another direction, leaving the tiny spy robot to perform its reconnaissance mission.

Less than a mile away, in a meadow within the vast kingdom of Hyrule. The long lush strands of green grass waved and billowed from the gust of gentle northwestern wind. The meadow was a haven for many creatures that called Hyrule home, like the Octorks and Like Likes. They milled about in their grassy kingdom and ruled over all they surveyed in perfect harmony with the other creatures of the vicinity.

A sweet tune rolled over the meadow. Fluid notes of music whistled over the breeze like an angel's breath on the world. It softly died away. "That was lovely, Link." The teenaged female Hylain sighed, her mind whisked half-way to dreams by the sweet melody as she leaned on a nearby boulder.

The other teenage Hylain, sitting against a small tree and dressed in green took his lips off the pale Ocarina in his hands and looked up to his companion. "Thank you, my lady Zelda." He replied.

"Must you be so formal?" Zelda asked. "While we are all alone out here in the meadow?"

"You are a princess." Link joked softly. "And you shall be treated as such."

"Oh, nonsense." Zelda giggled as Link slowly got up off the treestump which he had been using as a seat and gently kissed her hand.

"Will you play me another?" Zelda asked.

"Certainly, my lady." Link replied, raising the ocarina to his lips as he rested beside Zelda on her boulder. Taking in a deep breath, Link slowly exhaled into the small shell-like ocarina, and another soothing melody whispered along the wind as his fingertips raced around the ocarina's note holes. Zelda sighed and closed her eyes.

Zelda imagined she was flying. Flying without effort over Hyrule. Although she had never seen the castle from above, her mind created a mental image of an overhead view of her home, as she soared over it with hardly a thought of keeping aloft. She glided over the trees and rivers like a sparrow, the sweet music flowing from Link's ocarina taking hold of her and letting her soar over the skies.

Suddenly, her tranquil dream was abruptly shattered by the ear-piercing death shriek of a pheonix as the mystical flaming bird fell from the sky, its left wing completely gone.

"Damned wildlife." A new voice growled, even as another man, whom appeared to be in his late teens or early twenties, with short brown hair, deep amethyst eyes and dressed in a pure white uniform with a few ornate, gold-colored accents, leapt from the edge of a nearby cliff. Despite the fact that the drop from the cliff was in excess of 100 feet, the young man floated gently to the ground, his feet touching the soil without so much as a single sound.

Link was quick to unsheath his sword, pointing the tip at the mysterious intruder. "Identify yourself, stranger." Even as he did this, Link silently signaled for Zelda to return to the castle, and much to his relief, she was quite quick to follow his unspoken instructions.

"You dare to wave your sword at a god?" Kira asked, his voice completely calm, despite the conflict which could potentially arise from the current situation. "Just who the hell do you think you are?" Without waiting for an answer, Kira dropped the holoshroud around the Divinity's angelic wings, making it appear as though the white, feathery wings were his own. The amethyst-eyed man then freed the standard anti-ship sword from behind his right wing, but he didn't ignite the beam blade, as he wanted this fight to be somewhat fair.

"Who and what are you?" Link asked.

"I already told you who I am, Hero of Time." Kira answered. "I am the one you call God."

"If that's true." Link replied. "Why do you seem so eager to fight against me?"

"I simply wish to test your skills." The amethyst-eyed man smiled. "We certianly can't have the Hero of Time losing his fighting skills, now can we?"

"I suppose you do have a slight point there, stranger." Link agreed, after a long moment of silence. Kira smirked slightly as the Hero of Time rushed forward and swung the master sword.

Kira parried the attack perfectly and Link's sword slid off Kira's anti-ship sword, which instantly swung out to block the next slash. In less time than it took to blink, Kira's right leg came up and snapped out. Link knew he was unable to block the kick, so he tried jumping backward, only to fall onto his back. Link quickly jumped back to his feet, only for Kira's anti-ship sword to slam down against his shield.

"I had expected the Hero of Time to be much more skilled than this!" Kira laughed, even as he used his free hand and freed the quantum crystal anti-ship sword from behind his right wing, before then swinging the weapon and slicing Link's hylian shield in half.

"H-how in the world?" Link asked in disbelief as he dropped the two halves of his now ruined and useless shield to the ground.

"I thought I told you already." Kira smirked, stowing both of his anti-ship swords and using his now free right hand to take hold of his beam rifle. "I am the one you call God." With that, Kira raised the beam rifle and fired, a single bolt of searing green energy shot from the rifle and hit the master sword. Link dropped the now searing hot master sword almost instantly, to avoid burning his hand.

Kira smirked as he calmly holstered his beam rifle approached Link. The Hero of time, having never seen guns, much less beam rifles, slowly backed away from the dropped master sword. The amethsyt-eyed man simply smiled as he picked up the master sword, and sheathed the weapon on his left hip.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Link yelled.

"I'm taking your sword." Kira calmly answered, even as he turned and began to walk away. "It is obvious that you are not fit to wield the master sword."

Link scowled as he took out his bow and notched a trio of arrows, one light, one fire and one ice. With a slight smirk, he let the three arrows fly, all of them speeding unerringly towards their target.

"Please." Kira sighed, instantly spinning around, freeing the Tenseiga and Tessaiga from their sheaths, the Tenseiga in his left hand and the Tessaiga in his right. The amethsyt-eyed man calmly smirked as he held the Tenseiga horizontal, the blade glowing with a sky blue light. "Behold, dragon strike."

Link's eyes widened in shock as dozens of lightning bolts, each one nearly fifty feet in height, shot out of the blade in Kira's left hand, the blue bolts of electricity racing towards their target and vaporizing it. A nearly inaudible sigh escaped the amethyst-eyed man's lips as he once again sheathed the twin blades, before then deactivating the holoshroud and restoring the Divinity Gundam to its true height, finally he ignited his thrusters and flew away, leaving a large swath of the field smoking and burning.


	97. Divinity Reborn

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 97**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

Kira Yamato sat back quietly in the crew lounge overlooking Excalibur's primary docking bay and peered at the winged warships Minerva and Katusuragi as they slid into the bay.

The Nazca-class warship Rousseau silently floated in the airless void of space above the ZAFT-controlled Daedalus lunar base.

The ZGMF-X13C Divine Providence Gundam was indeed a very fine machine, reflected Rau Le Creuset as he rode his new, grey-colored mobile suit out of the Rousseau's mobile suit hanger and into battle. The Divine Providence was much more than a simple rebuild of the original Providence Gundam. In addition to the ten DRAGOON units, identical to those used by the Legend Gundam, the Divine Providence Gundam also posessed a pair of heat rods, a pair of beam sabers, a pair of beam shield generators and a high-energy long-range beam cannon. The heat rods were very interesting weapons, and the superior handling and maneuverability of the machine undoubtedly meant that this thing was no normal mobile suit.

A group of Windams rose up from the wreckage of the recently destroyed Galaxy-class warship, beam rifles blazing; Rau seized his chance and sent the left-hand heat rod lancing towards one of the machines. It wrapped around the right arm of a Windam, and Rau yanked the trapped machine closer, and with a quick slash, he chopped the Windam in two and stormed along on his way.

Beams from behind flashed around the Providence and towards another approaching Windam. One of them hit home, blowing off the Windam's head at the shoulders, and then a white Murasame dropped down from nowhere to slash off its head and left arm with a beam saber.

Rau frowned as he moved the Providence in to slash the disabled Windam in half. Instantly, Athrun Zala's disapproving face appeared on one of the Providence's monitors.

"Why did you do that? He was disabled!" Athrun shouted from the cockpit of the Infinite Justice Gundam.

"But he was not destroyed." Rau shot back. The two mobile suits darted apart as a beam volley coursed through the battlefield. "Try to leave your naiveté behind, Athrun. This is a war zone."

"I hardly think it naïve to note that killing people just breeds more conflict." Athrun scowled.

The Providence jinked to the side to avoid another Windam's beam rifle blast, and then charged forward to slash its rifle in two. The Windam backed away, supported by its three compatriots and forcing the Providence on the defensive, but not before Rau ignited the left-hand heat rod and ripped it clear through the Windam's torso to destroy it.

Rau glanced distastefully up at the Justice. "Then you still have much to learn."

"Those things again!" Athrun snarled as the Infinite Justice ignited its thrusters, roaring back into battle. A green and pink GuAIZ Experimental Firearms Type rushed in at its side, and in the cockpit Meyrin Hawke glanced up towards the crimson Gundam.

"What things?" She asked.

"Mobile suits that showed up ocasionally at Boaz. They have lightwave barriers. And... " Athrun trailed off, as the pressure washed over him. "And that clone...!"

Meyrin turned her eye towards the enemy and promptly rammed her GuAIZ into the Justice, driving both mobile suits to the left, just as a wave of beam fire coursed through the battlefield. "Pay attention, Athrun! I can't do all the fighting with my GuAIZ!"

Athrun shook his head and fixed his attention on the charging Gale Strike. "Hang back and give me fire support. Meyrin, call in Shinn's team." He rocketed ahead and switched his beam rifle to his left hand, giving him room to draw a beam saber with his right. "One Kira is enough!"

Up ahead, inside the Gale Strike Gundam, Kira Hibiki faltered as the pressure hit his mind. Within his mind's eye, Kira Hibiki saw a blue-haired boy, holding a green robotic bird in the palm of his hand.

He clenched his fists around the Gale Strike's controls. "Get out of my head!" The Gale Strike swapped its rifle for a saber and charged, and with a crash the two mobile suits came slamming together. "Hyperion team, get around him!"

A group of CAT1-XG1/12 Hyperion Gundams swept in, beam machine guns at the ready, and Athrun ground his teeth. "Perfect!"

With a flash of thruster exhaust, the Justice lunged up, just in time for the GuAIZ to pummel them all with beam rifle blasts, supported by a half dozen more mobile suits. Athrun seized his chance, rushed forward, and tore the first Hyperion's rifle in two with a quick saber hack. The Hyperion backed away and readied its lightwave barrier, as the other three opened fire and forced the Justice on the defensive.

Athrun whirled around to parry a saber blow from the Gale Strike and darted away again as it pressed the attack. He scanned the battlefield again and caught sight of the Hyperions, fixing his eyes on the one he had just deprived of its rifle. "I'll get rid of you four first, and then I'll deal with your friend in the Strike!"

Sparks flew as the Justice and Gale Strike clashed, saber to saber. Athrun saw a chance and surged forward to throw the Gale Strike back, but before the white Gundam could respond, the Justice darted to the side, saber blazing, and ran it through the rifle of a second Hyperion. He scanned the skies for the other two.

"Wait, that's only two of them! Where?"

He jerked back the controls and snapped his attention over his shoulder, where he caught sight of an M1 Astray. It swung up its rifle and opened fire, but the blasts landed harmlessly against a Hyperion's lightwave barrier, just in time for Meyrin's GuAIZ to lunge out of nowhere and tear off the Hyperion's right arm with its beam claws.

"Meyrin! Don't push too hard, the GuAIZ can't keep up!" He whipped back around to face the oncoming Gale Strike and deflected another saber strike. "Persistent little...!"

One of the Hyperions whirled in from behind, beam machinegun coming up to finish the fight. Athrun twirled the Justice around, ignited one of the leg-mounted beam blades, and slashed the Hyperion's rifle in two, and then went back on the defensive as the remaining mobile suits opened fire again.

"Dammit, Meyrin, where are you? The GuAIZ is too old for that!" One of the Hyperions came down from above with a beam saber in its hand. "What the?" The Justice rocked as the Hyperion brought down its saber, and Athrun's eyes went wide as the Gale Strike lunged up from behind with its own saber ready.

"Now, I'll finish this for good!" Kira Hibiki screamed.

"Like hell!" Athrun roared.

The GuAIZ came barreling out of nowhere to slam the Gale Strike aside with its shoulder, but a moment later, another Hyperion was there with its beam cannon ready. Meyrin jammed the controls to the side, but not far enough. The Hyperion opened fire and the GuAIZ's left arm and left leg vanished in the blast.

"Meyrin!" Athrun cried.

Meyrin's voice came cackling through the speaker as the Hyperion closed in for the kill, beam saber lit. "I'm not done yet!"

Instead, the smoke blasted apart and the maimed GuAIZ leveled off its rifle and drilled a blast straight through the Hyperion's cockpit. The two mobile suits were engulfed in a thundering explosion, and Athrun felt his heart skip a beat as the maimed, blackened GuAIZ went sailing out of the flames, into the arms of a ZAKU.

"You, take her back to the Rousseau!" Athrun shouted, and then whirled around to face the Gale Strike's furious attack. "Meyrin, answer me, are you alright?"

"K-Kinda." She grunted, and Athrun ground his teeth at the sight of blood drifting around her in the GuAIZ's battered cockpit. "Some shrapnel got me. It's not gonna kill me, but you're on your own now, Athrun."

Athrun turned his eyes back towards the charging Gale Strike, now accompinied by four Windams. "That's how I work best."

"Jesus Yamato, Divinity Gundam, launching!" A familiar voice rang out through the communications lines, as the Excalibur dropped the shroud of its phase cloak; the massive warship seeming to appear from the blackness of space itself, as the centerline catapult fired and the Divinity Gundam roared into battle.

Up ahead of the Infinite Justice Gundam, the four Windams quickly broke formation around the Gale Strike Gundam, but the Windam at the top of the formation suddenly reared up in surprise as the Divinity Gundam burst into the space before it. The angel-winged machine was glowing with a nearly blindingly bright blood red light as it slammed both its beam-clawed hands into the cockpit, and tore the entire mobile suit in two.

Kira whipped around as dozens of blasts flashed around him and darted down towards the next Windam, to rip it in two with a palm cannon blow. The third Windam rushed in from behind, using the Euclid as cover, but the Divinity whirled around and flung its arm out. A panel on the inside of the arm slid open and a clawed anchor blasted its way out of the arm and embedded itself in the Windam's cockpit, and with a shout, Kira pulled the anchor back and impaled the Windam through the chest with his mobile suit's left hand. He flung the sparking Windam's remains away and put himself between the Euclid and the Excalibur.

"What is that thing?" The remaining Windam pilot exclaimed. "Is that the Divinity Gundam?"

"No!" The pilot of one of the Euclid mobile armors answered. "That's a new model!"

The Divinity descended with a flash upon the Windam and blasted clear through its torso with a palm cannon strike, and then whirled around to face the Euclid closest to him. The gray mobile armor opened fire with its beam cannons, and Kira flicked his eyes to the right as the second one came streaking in as well.

"Sorry!" Mayu Asuka's voice called. "They got past...holy crap, is that the Divinity Gundam?" Kira had resurrected his lovers and his children, only a few hours prior to the start of this conflict, which explained how Mayu and her Destiny Impulse Gundam were on the battlefield at the moment.

Kira ground his teeth as the mobile armors lined up to open fire, even as he thought. _'Four Windams and two Euclids as your first prey, Divinity. That's not too bad.'_

With a blast of afterimages, the Divinity activated its beam wings and rocketed upward to let the beam shots sear by underneath. They both pulled up and poured beam fire after him, but the afterimages flared and blazed through the black sky, and Kira raised a hand up to the hilt of his mobile suit's Quantum Crystal anti-ship sword. One of the Euclids nosed up after him, beam cannons blazing, and it launched off a barrage of missiles from its rear section.

Kira seized his chance, charged forward with a scream, and drew the Divinity's anti-ship sword. The green shimmering beam flashed to life as he took the weapon in his hands, and with a triumphant shout he plunged down through the Euclid's fire, dipped the blade down into the Euclid's armor, and then flicked his wrist up to rip a gaping hole in the Euclid's hull. And then, with an ear-splitting screech, he drove the Divinity's left hand deep into the wound and poured fire from the palm cannon into the Euclid's insides. The second Euclid came down with a crash to rescue its comrade, but Kira lunged back and kicked the dead machine's nose, forcing it upward to smack into the second mobile armor. The first one belched sparks and exploded, sending the second one reeling, and Kira saw his chance.

"And now for you!"

The Divinity was there in a heartbeat, anti-ship sword raised high, and Kira brought it down with a scream to slash off the mobile armor's left-hand beam cannon and engine. The Euclid shuddered under the blow, and Kira's eyes darted up towards the Destiny Impulse.

"Mayu, now!"

Mayu wasted no time in lining up a beam cannon barrage through the Euclid's gaping new hole, and both mobile suits backed away as the mobile armor staggered forward and exploded.

"Th-That's the Divinity Gundam?" Mayu cried. "That thing is a monster!"

"Kira, are you alright in there?" Murrue asked as her Strike Freedom Gundam dropped in from above.

In the Divinity's humming cockpit, Kira scanned the battlefield. There was a strange point of pressure out there, and there was still that fleet to deal with. The Divinity could do it.

Rau Le Creuset felt the change immediately, even as his beam saber blazed against the beam saber held by the crimson Windam in front of him. Kira Yamato was out here now, and he had the Divinity Gundam, and now the entire universe would see what the he could really do.

"Ah, it seems that Kira has finally come out to play!" Rau cackled manicaly, throwing the Windam back and impaling the cockpit with his beam saber before the pilot could reorient the machine. "I am not going to miss this!"

The Divine Providence Gundam's eyes lit up with a cold blue light as it ignited its thrusters, the grey mobile suit quickly speeding away from the now exploding Windam.

"Admiral! We've detected the Excalibur!" One of the bridge crew on the Earth Alliance Archangel-class warship; Aurora, called out, excited. Admiral Richard Krowhart, sometimes known as King Crow for his habit of picking through the wrecks of destroyed ships and mobile units, leaned forward in his chair.

"Perfect." He muttered. "Get the Nelsons to move forward and have the Drakes screen them, tell them to prepare for anti-mobile suit, anti-mobile armor, and anti-ship combat. Oh, and ask the Drake crews where they left their wills." The ships did as ordered, with the Drakes holding positions just forward of the Nelsons. The next few seconds had the ships launching their mobile armors and mobile suits, numerous Windams, Strike Daggers and Moebiuses leaving their ships to dash towards the incoming Excalibur, with many more holding position around the fleet. The attacking machines were quickly destroyed by a combination of the CIWS rounds, flak shells, beam blasts and rail gun shells from the Excalibur, and the 36 rapidly moving and firing DRAGOON units of the Divinity Gundam, which had flown out from behind the Excalibur's bridge, the angel-winged mobile suit firing several blasts from its EMP Cannon at the head Drakes.

Those same Drakes fell to the hellish volley of fire from the Excalibur's beam turrets and rail guns, the expertly targeted shots ripping through hulls and munitions bays to cause devastation. Divinity darted in, smoothly dodging the bursts of CIWS fire and missiles, using the fire superiority afforded by the DRAGOON units to tear into the Drakes, and accounting for three more all by itself. A few of the Windams and Strike Daggers, their pilots obviously having more balls than brains, boosted at the Divinity, intending to end its reign of destruction. Instead, they were pierced by beams from several directions, momentarily turning into miniature suns as the searing energy blasts set off their ammunition and batteries.

A single Nelson moved forward, its intentions clear. It never got the chance to fire, however, the blood red form of Evangelion Unit 02 phasing into existence in front of the bridge and firing bursts from its beam rifle into the ship. A few more bursts shredded the armor, destroying the reactor before the Mirage Colloid swallowed the crimson machine up again. For the next few minutes, Evangelion Unit 02 engaged in guerrilla warfare, picking off Drakes with beam fire and damaging Nelsons with its twin rail guns. After about fifteen seconds of this, the crimson mobile suit reappeared behind one of the Agamemnons, its left-hand rail gun firing upwards, clean through the ship, the projectile piercing the armor to come up from below the captain's chair, impaling the unfortunate officer and dragging him with it back into space.

"Damn it, how many did they launch before coming here?" Krowhart hissed, displeased by the rather unfortunate turn of events.

"I think...all of them sir." The sensor officer said.

"What?" The officer pointed. From the left, the others came, Akatsuki, Strike Freedom, Twilight, Destiny, Infinite Justice, Eclipse, and Destiny Impulse, each of the mobile suits nestled within the menacing confines of a METEOR unit. The seven machines came on in a fury, instantly unleashing hundreds of thousands of missiles and beam blasts. Even so, the massive wave of destruction annihilated half the remaining Drakes, and practically vaporized a good portion of the mobile armors and mobile suits.

Hope Yamato's manical cackle echoed about the radio waves as the Destiny Gundam dscarded its METEOR and charged into a Nelson, clawing straight through it and into another. Six Windams swooped in, hoping to save their ship. Instead, the Destiny's open maw emitted a red-blue energy beam, running one Windam through and impacting on another. The Destiny's left hand embedded in the Nelson, forcing Hope to detach the appendage, revealing the three-bladed claw hidden within the Destiny's forearm. Even as she used her remaining hand to draw the beam rifle to destroy another Moebius. Two more Windams were shredded, the Destiny's rapidly spinning claw slicing them into little more than scraps of metal. The last one ran, coming under the condescending fire of the CIWS, and managing to escape into the fray between the ships. There, it was destroyed by a shot from the Twilight's high-energy beam rifle.

Rau Le Creuset used the Divine Providence Gundam's twin-bladed beam naginata, wielding it in his right hand as the beam rifle fired from his left. The beam blasts that he had fired, melting through two Moebius as the beam naginata slashed clean through another mobile armor that ventured too close, slicing it in half. The beam rifle fired three more times, one shot destroying a Drake's bridge and two more coring its thrusters. Three Strike Daggers decided to go on an attack run, arcing their path to bring them straight at the Providence. A completely foolish move, as Rau proved, easily weaving in between the bursts of machine gun bullets to destroy them, his beam naginata slicing them in half.

A few miles away, on the other side of the battlefield, the Destiny Impulse fought among a scattered group of two Drakes, a Nelson, and the four surviving Moebius of their combined detachment. The Impulse's long-range beam cannon fired a blast into the hull of one Drake, searing its way past quite a bit of the hull before dissipating. Momentarily leaving the sorely damaged Drake, Mayu turned the Impulse around to fire her long-range beam cannon again, the superheated plasma blast leaving a supposedly sneaky Moebius as little more than vapor. Without turning its head, the Impulse fired its beam rifle, the column of energy tearing through one of the Nelson's twin beam guns, even as the METEOR fired a flight of anti-ship missiles for the wounded Drake, exploding in the large cavity created by the cannon blast. Evidently, the series of explosions set something off, and the entire left side of the escort ship was reduced to floating scrap.

Before Mayu could turn her attention towards the remaining Drake and the Nelson, three beams slashed through the Drake, and a dozen DRAGOON units smashed into the Nelson, ripping through the center of the battleship and taking most of the ship's innards with them as they continued, slightly deflected from their original trajectory, to smash into the side of another Nelson, severely damaging the ship, before finally returning to the Divinity Gundam's back

"Damn it, stop stealing my kills!" Mayu snarled over the communications line, causing some of the CIC crew to shrink into their chairs.

On the bridge of the Aurora, Krowhart seethed with fury.

"What the hell are they doing? Get the Nelsons back around us! And tell the Drakes to stop screwing around and deal with those mobile suits!" Unfortunately for the Admiral's blood pressure, about half of the Drakes obeyed the order, the rest either having been destroyed or severely damaged in key areas.

Then the good Admiral's day got a lot worse. The Eclipse zoomed past a Nelson, completely ignoring its rather pitiful machine gun turrets to head straight for the brain of the fleet, being followed by the Twilight, which was doing a good job of confounding the fleet's systems. Within a short time of being exposed to the Twilight's special brand of hacking and electronic warfare, the Nelson's machine guns were turned on the Moebius and Strike Daggers pursuing the two Gundams, creating a mess not unlike that of a shredded aluminum can.

As the Eclipse reached the first Agamemnon, the powerful plasma cannons fired, twin luminescent beams of concentrated plasma reaching out. Unfortunately for the Agamemnon, the Eclipse rather easily avoided the slow-moving fire path of the cannons, wings moving to direct thrust in a manner that, combined with the leg thrusters positioning, resulted in a pseudo-somersault, landing the white mobile suit well outside of the cannons coverage, and right in front of the unfortunate carrier's bridge. Seeming bored, at least going by 'body language', the Eclipse holstered its rifle, unsheathed one of its beam sabers, and slashed the front of the bridge, exposing it to vacuum. An amount of freezing air was ejected into space, along with the dead or soon-to-be-dead bridge crew and captain, and whatever loose objects had been in the bridge.

To the side, the Twilight simply drifted towards a second Agamemnon, its systems causing every beam to hit an Alliance ship, often destroying a Drake or at the very least, crippling a Nelson. As the Twilight drifted past the cannons, it activated the beam sabers in its wrists, slashing them diagonally, creating an X-like breach in the bridge. With the Alliance fleet wiped out, the Celestial Being mobile suits returned to the Excalibur.


	98. Negotiations and Conflict

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 98**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

About five minutes had passed since the Freedom Gundam had mysteriously appeared, stabbing the Divinity in the left arm before quickly falling back on the defensive.

"I see that it's starting to take effect." Kira was annoyed with the pilot of the mobile suit in front of him, not in the least because she was probably responsible for the Divinity's current problems.

"What do you mean?" Kira demanded. The pilot of the Freedom Gundam, whom had introduced herself as; Lena Sutherland, laughed, sounding somehow cruel and feminine at the same time.

"When I stabbed you, the blade automatically injected nanites into your machine, all of which are programmed to utilize environmental materials to multiply. I'm guessing that in about a minute, they'll reach your cockpit and cut the main control circuits, leaving you completely hel-" Lena was interrupted, mainly by the twin rail guns shells that caught the Freedom in the chest. "Fucking retard! Those shells aren't doing anything!"

"That might not, but this will." Kira promised, the Divinity leveling its electromagnetic cannon at the Freedom. The Freedom Gundam folded its arms, and stared.

"What? One of those kenetic penetration rounds? It's just a little more energy than those explosives." The Divinity merely shrugged before it fired. There was a white streak, with a very slight hint of blue, like a dwarf sun traveling at supersonic speed. Within a millionth of a second after firing, the projectile was embedded in the Freedom's left shoulder, and Kira could literally see the Freedom's armor melting from it. The next instant, the projectile exploded, the Freedom's arm flying away in no less than ten pieces.

Inside the Freedom, Lena gaped. Now, she didn't have to rely on the cameras to see the Divinity. She could just look out of the enormous hole in the Freedom's side. "What the hell?"

Kira shrugged as he replied. "Anti-matter."

"Damn." Lena muttered, moving the Freedom a lot more than before. Even if he didn't have any more of those rounds, normal projectiles could finish her off, with the big hole in the armor.

Now both Gundams were circling each other, hovering in the air, The Divinity aiming its electromagnetic cannon at the Freedom while the blue-winged mobile suit covered the hole in its torso with its physical shield.

Kira almost cursed profoundly when the Infinite Justice Gundam suddenly dropped in from above, slamming feet first into the Freedom's back and sending the white mobile suit slamming into the ground. With the Divinity getting torn up on the microscopic scale, he didn't have any time to waste in dealing with the Freedom.

"Athrun, Get back!"

"Fuck off, Kira!" At that point, the Freedom elbowed the Justice in the face, knocking the crimson mobile suit slightly off balance. A large cannon emerged from the Freedom's back, mounting itself over the Gundam's remaining shoulder.

Kira instantly recognized it. It was a miniaturized hyper accelerated linear cannon, from some of the G-Project's theoretical schematics. Like the original hyper accelerated linear cannons used by the Archangel and the Excalibur, it used both rail and gauss magnetic systems.

He couldn't do anything about what came next.

The Freedom flew backwards rapidly, before firing while still moving. The shot blasted straight into and through the Divinity's physical shield, before then continuing through the electromagnetic cannon and limb to embed itself in the Divinity's side. Athrun took back control of his body, horrified by what happened next.

The Divinity was blasted apart, armor, endoskeleton structure, and other parts flying everywhere, melting all the while from the extreme heat. Most of it wasn't anything like solid by the time Athrun processed it. His reaction was obvious.

Without a word, the Justice's beam claws ignited, gripping onto the barrel of the weapon and slicing it apart. The other claw ripped off torso armor, clawing for the cockpit. The Freedom didn't take this lying down, smacking the Justice in the head again while powering up its thrusters. The duo flew into the sky, angling off towards the horizon.

"There's no way...it can't be true..." Cagalli said, slumping down on the floor of the Excalibur's bridge. Similar expressions were on the faces around her, from Mayu to Lacus.

"Come on...there's no way Kira can be dead...right?" Hope said, looking down. Everyone else was , understandably silent.

At the same time, in Alaska, William Sutherland's slight grin faded completely as the last of his three visitors exited his quarters, the door sliding silently shut. Then he reached down into one of the drawers and pulled out a file, flipping through it until he reached one specific document.

**OMNI Enforcer / Blue Cosmos Intelligence Profile**

Name: Kira Yamato-Athha-Clyne

Date of Birth: May 18, CE 55

Age: 20

Gender: Male

Blood Type: A

Eye Color: Violet

Hair Color: Brown

Height: 165 centimeters (5 feet 4 inches)

Weight: 79 Kilograms (175 pounds)

Nationality: Orb Union

Allegiance(s): Clyne Faction, Celestial Being, Orb Union

Position: Prince of Orb, Leader of Celestial Being, Sub-leader of Clyne Faction

Known Relations: Caridad Yamato (Deceased Mother), Haruma Yamato (Deceased Father), Uzumi Nara Athha (Adoptive Father), Lacus Clyne (Wife), Cagalli Yula Athha (Twin Sister), Hope Yamato (Twin Sister), Murrue Ramius (Mistress?), Athrun Zala (Brother-in-law?)

Genetic Type: Coordinator (Ultimate?)

Psychological Profile: Very slight sociopath, very slight psychopath, slight paranoia, possible God-complex

Political Leaning: Strongly anti-Blue Cosmos

Mobile weapons: GAT-X105 Strike Gundam, ZGMF-X10A Freedom Gundam, CB-X60D Divinity Gundam

History: Yamato has no 'official' history beyond his 'adoption' by Uzumi Nara Athha after the Battle of Ptolemaios. However, OMNI Intelligence suspects that Yamato is a former subject of Doctor Hibiki's 'Ultimate Coordinator' experiments, perhaps even his son, although no records obtained from the Lagrange 4 facilities confirm or deny this. Also, according to Vice-Admiral Edward Abaddon, Yamato is apparently responsible for the death of Admiral J. Abaddon, although this claim is unlikely, considering Yamato was perhaps 10 at the time. To this point, Yamato has participated in several operations openly, masquerading as an Orb Intelligence Agency operative in the Battle of Heliopolis, as well as the combat action at Artemis, where he managed to escape the custody of Vice-Admiral Abaddon and turn the loyalty of the entire crew of the Archangel to Orb. Then he fought above Africa in Earth Orbit against Admiral Krowhart's Third Fleet. Afterwards, he engaged in several skirmishes on Earth, ranging from North Africa to the Indian Ocean before his mobile suit, the CB-X60D Divinity Gundam, was destroyed in combat with the reverse-engineered GAT-X105A Freedom Gundam, piloted by Commander Lena Sutherland. However, according to Commander Abaddon, Yamato managed to evacuate the Divinity prior to its destruction, impossible as it seems. Presently, judging by the vicinity of both ZAFT ships and the Archangel, it is likely that Yamato has already been recovered, and is at Orb. On a slight side-note; Yamato has claimed to have commited omnicide on multiple ocassions.

Skills: Eyewitness accounts suggest Yamato is an extremely skilled mobile suit pilot, with a kill count numbering in the millions, including ZAFT and OMNI kills. Also, judging by progress reports and teacher comments recovered from the Heliopolis Institute of Technology, Yamato is extremely skilled in computer software technology, and thus can be said to be a highly proficient hacker as well. It should be noted that he was able to complete the GAT-X105 Strike Gundam's Operating System during a fifteen-second lull in a fight with a ZAFT GINN. As a Coordinator, Yamato presumably possesses the same advanced learning capability, heightened intelligence, and increased healing rate, as well as the same near-immunity to diseases and viruses. However, if he is one of Hibiki's 'Ultimate Coordinators' then it could be said that his Coordinator attributes are greater than normal, probably to an extreme degree.

Side Note 1: The Blue Cosmos members of OMNI (e.g., most COs, NCOs, and quite a few enlisted soldiers) have noticeably increased preparations for the upcoming operation against Orb since Intel revealed the possibility of Yamato being an 'Ultimate Coordinator'.

Side Note 2: An increased reluctance to engage in said operation has been noted amongst the less fanatical Blue Cosmos members and much of the enlisted troops.

Personal Note 1: Considering Yamato's track record, I don't blame them.

Personal Note 2: Recommend that Yamato be labeled as 'Person of Mass Destruction' (PMD)

After reading over the profile, William felt a slight twinge of pride every time the words 'Commander Abaddon' passed his eyes, even tearing up a little bit as he remembered his daughter's promotion. Immediately after that, he chuckled a bit when reading the personal notes.

_'I gotta remember to track this guy down. He doesn't wrap up his reports in layers of shit to cover his own ass.'_ As a soldier, Sutherland hated bureaucrats on principle. After digesting the document, which was not completely accurate, he leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling.

"If they didn't check you for weapons and lock you up if they found any, I'd have brought a knife to kill myself." Shinn grumbled, tailing Kira and Misato into the building. For this particular meeting, it had been decided to use an unknown facility, an out-of-the-way place. Mainly because the content of the meeting would be of particular interest to any OMNI Enforcer Intelligence agents, or any Blue Cosmos sympathizers, and Orb SpecOpsIntel was making its paranoia clear.

The three walked through the halls, past a few dozen armed and armored Orb Military Police officers, before emerging into a large round room. Aside from the lowest, circular part, wherein a large circular table capable of seating up to twenty people was placed, the room was seperated into three sections, one marked with the ZAFT flag above it, the other with the Orb flag, and the last marked with the Celestial Being flag.

The representatives from Orb filed into their desiginated section, of course, and were joined by several of the higher politicians from Orb. In the ZAFT section, Andrew, Rau, Athrun, Meyrin, and the rest of Le Creuset team sat, along with Lacus and the vast majority of her bodyguards. In the Celestial Being sections sat Kira, Murrue, Lunamaria, Shinn, Mu, and the rest of the Excalibur's bridge crew, along with Murdoch.

Then their attention switched over to the central round section, as Uzumi, followed by the five other Noble families took their seats. Kira saved a very unpleasant grin for Unato Ema Seiran.

On the other side of the massive table, Lacus sat down, closely flanked by Hope and Misato. Considering the delicacy of the situation, both global and orbital, this was probably going to be one of the first diplomatic negotiations to be conducted like this in centuries. The advent of near-instantaneous communications had rendered the status of diplomat little more than an honorific, whereas before a diplomat was pretty much considered to be the country he or she was representing.

Considering the fact that any wireless communication between ZAFT and Orb was bound to be intercepted by OMNI orbital assets, it was too risky to talk about the current subject in such a manner, and shipping the actual heads of state in either direction was so far out of the question that no one had even mentioned it.

If anyone had any doubts about the seriousness of these talks, they were dispelled when a total of four Orb SpecOpsIntel teams took up positions around the doors. Kira nodded at the team guarding the door to the Orb section.

"If we may get started." Uzumi said, nodding to Lacus. She nodded, smiled, and stood up, drawing the attention of everyone in the room.

"Thank you, Chief Representative." She began. "As you know, the PLANTs have been at war with the Earth Alliance since the Bloody Valentine Incident." She went on to describe the continuous damages and difficulties experienced by not just the PLANTs, but even the Earth Alliance itself, and the mounting casualties in the conflict. "And thus, the PLANTs would like to ask the Orb Union for an alliance."

Needless to say, it wasn't really all that well received by some of the Orb people. It took a few entreaties from Uzumi to get them calmed down and a few pointed stares from Unato before they could continue.

"We understand your situation, Miss Clyne." Uzumi started. "But as you know, it is a principle of Orb not to attack another nation, or intervene in the conflicts of other nations."

"I understand and respect that, Chief Representative Athha." Lacus replied, bowing slightly. "However, this conflict is already one in which Orb is involved in."

"What do you mean?" Uzumi asked, cocking his head to the side.

"Despite the fact that Orb has not actually taken real action in the war, the support of some of its more influential leaders, has led to the image that Orb has in fact taken a side by helping the Alliance in developing its mobile suits. And then there are the actions of Kira Yamato, who is well-affiliated with Orb, in coercing the crew of the Earth Alliane warhip Archangel, the ZAFT warship Minerva, and many others to defect. By any means, it would seem that Orb has gotten itself very involved."

A good number of the Orb politicians sitting at the table turned to glare at Kira. Upon meeting the bloodthirsty gaze of Shinn and the space-cold stare of Kira, they turned back with their knees turned to jelly.

"You make a good point, Miss Clyne." Unato said, taking the stage from Uzumi. "Miss Clyne, may ask of you just how many people died in the nuclear attack on Junius Seven?" Lacus looked at him, slightly confused by the out of the blue question, but she answered nonetheless.

"Exactly 243,721 people died during the Junius Seven tragedy Mr. Seiran. But surely you know this?" Unato set a grim look to his features.

"I do, Ms. Clyne. But would you agree that ZAFT's retaliatory actions of dropping Neutron Jammers all over the Earth during the April Fool's Crisis was justified and above all else...Humane?" Lacus, Hope, Misato, and the Le Creuset team with the exclusion of Rau himself, seemed slightly uncomfortable by the intensity of his question

"Well, yes, Mr. Seiran, I think it was given the circumstances, though I personally would have preferred if it had not have happened." Unato at this point seemed perfectly calm but in the room everyone felt a sort of ominous sensation.

"Ms. Clyne, would you care to make an educated guess at how many civilians on Earth have died as a direct result of the April Fool's Crisis?"

"I can't say that I honestly can, Mr. Seiran."

"Would you like for me to give you an estimate based on conclusive facts?" Lacus simply nodded her head in a slightly disturbed affirmative. "Since April 1st, Cosmic Era 65, until now my intelligence division has gathered enough information to come up with a reasonably accurate figure. Current estimates and reports would indicate that the death tolls in the vast majority of earth metropolises and urban areas are now over 95 Percent, some of them in hospitals and due to the shutdown of crucial medical equipment from the power outages. Others are due to the failure of high-speed public transportation systems. Other causes include the spread of sickness and disease due to the failure of waste-disposal systems, Optimistically speaking this means that a mere 2,769,530,000 civilians died as a direct result of ZAFT's drop of Neutron Jammers upon that day." Lacus and the rest of the ZAFT and PLANT representatives had looks of horrified shock on their faces. Unato proceeded with a very cold tone to his voice "Tell me, Ms. Clyne, how does the destruction of Junius Seven and it's inhabitants humanely justify that number of deaths. Orb can not ever ally it's self with ZAFT officially, making some deals under the table is fine but realistically I should have you, your entourage, and every member of ZAFT within Orb arrested and handed over to the Earth Alliance as a peace offering." Everyone tensed then, the SpecOpsIntel teams in the center stepping slightly forward as Hope and Misato reached for their side-arms. "The only reasons I don't is because you did help to protect many Orb refugees and Orb property, as well as the simple fact that the Earth Alliance and OMNI Enforcer will still legitimize a seizure of Orb's Sovereignty anyways. My own personal rules also mean I'm loath to betray you and your people in such a manner but an official alliance between Orb and the PLANTs can not and will not happen so long as I have the power to stop it. Am I clear?"

"But...Minister Zala...he said that there would be few casualties...and that only the OMNI Enforcer military would be affected in any meaningful way..." Lacus muttered, coming to terms with the new information.

"In that case, I would suggest that you contact the PLANT Supreme Council for clarification." Unato said coldly. "Until then, I would suggest that we adjourn for a break." Everyone filed out then, and all took notice of the two heavily armed and armored soldiers looking after the PLANT and ZAFT members.

"WHAT!" Siegel Clyne barked, rather astonished at the out-of-the-blue accusation thrown out at one of his close friends and colleagues.

"I know. Are you sure Mr. Zala was speaking the truth?" Lacus asked urgently. If he hadn't...neither Clyne would be happy with him.

"I don't think he was, Lacus." The pop star jumped slightly and turned to find the ace mobile suit pilot and son of the person in question, Athrun Zala standing blankly behind her.

"Athrun!"

"You know, after Junius Seven...I don't think that he was really in his right mind." Athrun continued, his mind working over every time he'd seen his father since the Bloody Valentine tragedy...since his mother died.

"And what do you suggest we do?" Siegel asked, not without some sympathy.

"I'd suggest you get the fuck out of there." They all looked to see Kira standing nearby, Hope and Misato flanking him. "If Patrick Zala has managed to keep the actual casualty figures a secret from _everyone_ on the Supreme Council and those affiliated with them, that means he has the support of much of ZAFT and the media."

"And that means." Misato continued. "That if any of you started asking 'questions' then there will probably be a few 'disappearances', so to speak."

"So, I think you'd better leave, right the fuck now." Hope stated, openly and bluntly, as was her nature.

"I...I suppose that would be the most prudent course of action..." Siegel agreed, nodding. "Very well. But where are we going to run to, and how?"

"There's a colony at Lagrange Point Four." Kira supplied. "It's rather run down, especially since it was attacked by Blue Cosmos, but we have managed to to restore it. It's large enough to hold all of what you'll have. You should probably start by contacting all the ZAFT units that you know can be trusted, and smuggle your families out of the PLANTs."

"Thank you, Mr. Yamato."

"It's my pleasure."

Lacus said good-bye to her father and closed the line. She gave Kira a thankful look, before turning to glance concernedly at Athrun. The ZAFT red pilot was leaning against the wall, looking suitably shell-shocked for someone who'd learned that their father may be one of the worst mass-murderers of all time. Kira wordlessly walked over and leaned against the wall next to him

"Hey...You remember that time in 4th grade, when we reprogrammed the cafeteria robots?" Kira asked, attempting to lighten the mood, drawing a snort and a chuckle from Athrun.

"They went completely nuts and started splattering everyone with mashed potatoes and gravy." He snorted, drawing Kira with him into a short, shared laugh.

"And that other time, when we hacked the teacher's in-school messaging programs and started sending around bogus messages." Kira managed to blurt out through his laughter.

"They all thought there was a month-long holiday!" Athrun wheezed, drawing the two into further spirals of hilarity as more incidents were remembered.

The meeting has had resumed about thirty minutes after Unato had called for a break, with some noticeable exceptions. Rau was missing from the ZAFT section, saying that the outcome had been decided. Athrun, Meyrin and Lacus were now seated in the ZAFT section, and the Orb SpecOpsIntel team in the center section had likewise been redeployed to guard the Orb section.

"Miss Clyne, would you like to start?" Uzumi asked, leaning forward, elbows on the table and hands intermingled in front of him.

"Yes, Mr. Athha." Lacus said, rising from her seat. "After communicating with Chairman Clyne, and select members of the PLANT Supreme Council, it has been determined that Minister Zala and others of the Supreme Council, as well as some of ZAFT's high-ranking personnel, have deceived us and the PLANTs. Thus, it is determined that Patrick Zala and his supporters are war criminals of the highest order, and shall be arrested and turned over to Orb personnel, to be turned over to the Earth Alliance."

"Heh, politics." Shinn muttered to Kira.

"I have to say, this seems to be a rather important scapegoat." Unato said slowly.

"Not at all." Lacus denied. "After viewing the current evidence of his initial deception over the effects of the Neutron Jammers, it has been judged that Zala and his supporters cannot be trusted any longer."

"You do realize that arresting him is unlikely in the extreme? Considering that, by your own word, he has managed to subvert the majority of ZAFT HighCom to his side, it would mean that even speaking to him of it is more likely to get you killed and your family imprisoned, at best." Unato pointed out, still resting in his chair.

"You can't kill or imprison God." Kira finally spoke up, his voice calm, yet deadly serious.

The sound of fingers tapping on a keyboard was what Yzak Joule heard, a few hours later. The sound piercing the light hum of the maglev train, and even the conversations of his fellow ZAFT redcoats.

"For the sake of my sanity and the safety of your skull, couldn't you wait until I'm reletively far away from you to do that, Kira?" Yzak Joule shouted. The Leader of Celestial Being didn't even look up from his laptop, still incessantly typing away at a speed of about 500 words per minute. Growling, the white-haired Coordinator got up and walked across the aisle towards Kira.

In the seat next to Kira's, Hope was silently sleeping. Thus far in the trip, it had been a peaceful and quiet rest, without any loud or annoying sounds that could have distracted Yzak from his current target of Kira.

_'And...now!'_ The more sadistic part of Hope's mind ordered gleefully, causing her to let out a very loud and obnoxious snore. Just as she predicted, Yzak snapped, going for Hope's throat. Instead, Hope wrapped one of her hands around Yzak's neck, squeezing hard, without Hope herself noticing the action and continuing to sleep. By now, Hope was guessing she'd only need a few more seconds to permanently imprint her fingers into Yzak's neck.

"AH! Hope, let him go!" Cagalli cried, grabbing Hope's arm and tugging.

"Kira! Help us here!" Dearka Elsman jumped on Yzak, trying to wrestle him away from Hope. Finally, Kira saved what he was working on and looked up.

"I told you guys not to get too close to her!"

"What you didn't tell us was that she sleep-strangles!" Athrun Zala hissed, just before Yzak accidentally kicked him in the gut. Cagalli caught Athrun and pushed him back, joining him in grabbing Yzak and helping Dearka pull him away. Yzak's own struggles to get Hope's hand off of his jugular were actually impeding the efforts of his comrades to do the same.

Kira astonished them all by swiftly drawing Hope's huge survival knife and pressing the flat of the blade to the back of her neck. Instantly, Hope's arm went limp and floppy, falling from Yzak's neck to rest on Hope's side.

"Grrrrrrr! WHY DON'T YOU KEEP A LEASH ON THAT THING?" Yzak roared somewhat hoarsely, massaging his neck.

"I did at one point. She used it to strangle someone." Kira answered, to the astonished and disturbed looks of the ZAFT redcoats and to the sighs of Cagalli.

"Why did she stop when you pressed your knife to her neck?" Dearka asked, glancing over the head of the seat Hope was sitting in. To the casual observer, Hope would appear to be sleeping like a baby. Actually, even a trained spy would conclude that she was perfectly harmless at this moment, disregarding the earlier throttling.

"I don't know why, but the feeling of anything cold on that part of her neck tends to calm her down from one of her rages." Kira supplied, shrugging as to why that would have any effect. In reality, that was an unfortunate side-effect from the Alliance experiments in nano-technological augmentation that had made Hope as she was. A sudden decrease in temperature on the epidermis on the back of the neck, where the central nanomachine control was, would cause the nanomachines assigned to the muscular system to temporarily malfunction, ceasing the progress of conscious signals to the muscles before being repaired by maintenance machines.

"We're here!" Cagalli celebrated when the train stopped, dragging their luggage behind her as she raced up to street level, completely bypassing the other departing passengers and would-be boarders, barreling up the escalators.

"Damn, she's fast." Dearka noted, with Nicol nodding sagely next to him. "I wonder how all that energy translates to their experiences in bed..."

"Pardon?" Kira asked, turning his head swiftly away from his packing to glare at the duo with an expression that promised instant torture should they delay in responding.

"I-I-I-It's just a joke! Hahaha..." Dearka blurted, holding his hands up in an attempt to fend off the terrifying glare.

"Damn." Cagalli whistled as the group walked into the foyer of the huge mansion which they would be living in.

"Yeah, Andy had to negotiate with Lucifer to get this space." Kira said. "He got a pretty good deal. Ten pure Orb virgins sacrificed per year so long as we promise to use this place for the purposes of death and destruction. It's better than the terms OMNI got for their Debris Belt places. They have to spend eight hours a day praising the landowner. It's a wonder they ever get anything done."

The ZAFT redcoats stared at him.

"Who the hell is Lucifer?" Yzak asked.

"Oh right, you guys were raised in the PLANTs. You didn't have to deal with all the religious bullshit here on Earth." Kira said, before going on to mutter something about terrorists and nuking Jerusalem.

Kira blearily opened his eyes as his cell phone shrieked from his bedside table. He groped for the small, palm-sized device, grabbed it and held it to his ear. It automatically answered the call.

"What the hell, Lexi? It's...it's two in the morning...what? Please tell me you're kidding...yeah, well, the problem with shit is that it tends to happen." Removing the phone from his ear, he stabbed the center of the touch screen with his thumb and sighed, rising from his bed.


	99. Tragedy at Copernicus Part 1

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 99**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

Murrue Ramius, along with Mayu Asuka, Shinn Asuka and the rest of the Excalibur's enlisted crew, stood on the dock, gazing in awe at the Excalibur. Originally, the Excalibur was pure white, heavenly almost. Over time, through battles with various factions, that white coloring had been marred by carbon burns, scarred by missile fragments, and quite literally blown off. Some parts of the hull had even melted during the dozens of orbital descents, and then later cooled to form strange shapes, almost looking like flesh.

Now, though, the Excalibur was almost pitch-black, all across its main hull. The thrusters had sweeping strokes of blue and white in a flame-like design that escalated towards the mouth of the propulsion system. On either side of the bridge was painted the sunburst of Orb, with a wing-like background outlined in gold.

"First off, our spies and satellites have confirmed this." Unato began smoothly. "There are several OMNI Enforcer fleets moving towards Orb. To be specific, the First and Second Pacific Fleets, the Second Atlantic Fleet, and two Task Forces from their naval bases at mainland Asia. All of these are accompanied by matching forces of mobile weapon formations and air support. They will arrive within a day, although they are already well within the flight time of their aerial forces."

"So, they've finally made their move." Todoka whispered, as the hologram projector on the table activated, showing the fleets on a three-dimensional terrain map of Orb and the waters around it for over a thousand kilometers.

"Yes. It appears that the Pacific fleet has also scrounged up some support from a small Task Force based in Hawaii, and both of the Atlantic Fleets are composed mainly of remodeled carriers, and have also received reinforcements. I suspect the majority of their forces will be mobile suits, although some of these appear to be amphibious transport carriers, for infantry and light armor." Unato replied, scanning the information.

"And their targets?" Uzumi asked.

"The smaller Task Forces are angling towards the cities on both our northern and western coasts. The Atlantic Fleet is heading west, staying south of us, presumably targeting our largest military port on the west coast, while both Pacific Fleets are targeting Zenopolis City, and Onogoro Island, as well as Kaguya." Unato supplied.

"Alright. What do you suggest?"

"I recommend a ballistic re-entry vehicle assault, conventional high-explosive warheads, from missile satellite group four." Unato replied

"Denied." Uzumi said. "Such an act is in direct violation of Orb's ideals. There may yet be a peaceful solution to this conflict."

"Sir, in times such as these, ideological goals must be superseded by stark reality." Unato coolly retorted, rising to his feet, and standing next to the Chief Representative. Who turned to glare at him.

The two were virtually nose to nose and were staring each other down like a pair of old monsters, one a great Lion, the other a veritable Thunderbird of ancient lore. Those who were present would say that their was enough wrath between the two's glares to kill a million times over and no one would dare step between them out of simple mortal fear.

As the combined OMNI Enforcer fleets reached the Orb Union's territorial waters, they were suddenly crushed by the cloaked form of the warship Excalibur. On the bridge of the dagger-shaped warship, Cagalli Yula Athha smirked as she shut off the levatator, sending the massive vessel into a 50,000 foot controlled freefall. The massive warship effortlessly plowed through the OMNI Enforcer air support before finally crashing down onto the fleet itself. In no more than thirty seconds, the entire attacking force had been wiped out.

Every soldier stationed on the South American coastline gulped in fear when the first burning streaks appeared high in the atmosphere. With the 3rd Orbital Fleet destroyed, and Halberton's 8th Fleet unresponsive for some reason, the entire western hemisphere was now open to an assault from ZAFT. And they weren't ones to waste such a chance, as they proved now.

Despite, or perhaps because of their defeat at JOSH-A, ZAFT's soldiers were furious. Never had such a singular loss devastated their forces...but now they could make the Naturals pay!

The first blows in the Battle of Panama came with off-shore cruisers launching flights of missiles at the descending drop pods, a good number missing due to the hot chaff from the disintegrating hull, but nevertheless destroying quite a few before their payloads came out. When the mobile suits did emerge from their shells though, the tide changed drastically.

ZAKUs armed with beam rifles, GINNs and GuAIZs armed with heavy missile launchers and ion sniper rifles fired through the air, specifically targeting the missile launchers on the cruisers, and more often than not sinking the ships from the holes that were blasted straight through the hull by the exploding munitions. Even before they landed, the mobile suits were already firing on the rest of the defenders with all manner of weapons.

Most of the defenders at this point were about three companies of combined forces, consisting of main battle tanks, missile trucks, and infantry, along with several bunker installations and a few shoreline artillery batteries. Not something to even concern a mobile suit beyond a stomp usually, in these numbers they were slightly worrying. Of course, one had to take into account the numbers of ZAFT troops dropping in. Well over 150 teams, with four to seven mobile suits each, were falling over the Panama Mass Driver Base, almost 1,000 humanoid war machines in total, each one with enough firepower to destroy a warship.

Many GINNs and GuAIZs of the invading force were damaged, ranging from 'scuffed by a bullet' to 'bisected by a missile', but the majority landed in the middle of the defense forces, or in some cases on top of them.

Things had just become a lot worse for the Earth Alliance.

"Whoever that person is, they pilot just like Kira!" Athrun Zala snarled, as dozens of beam rifle blasts pummeled his beam shield. The METEOR-clad Infinite Justice Gundam let loose a massive salvo of missiles that rained down around the port, but the GAT-FJ108 Sumbullet Raigo Gundam effortlessly ducked between them and let its remaining three Slaughter Windams pick the missiles off with CIWS rounds.

Inside the Raigo, Kira Hibiki watched behind his cold black helmet as the Justice inexorably inched back, deeper into the port and towards the interior of the Arnhelm Colony. Hibiki darted to the side, dodging a beam salvo from the Justice, and leveled off his long-range beam cannon to squeeze off a shimmering blast, and with a thundering explosion, one of the spaceport doors finally gave way and exploded, and a gush of air came bursting out.

Athrun ground his teeth in frustration. "They're trying to enter the colony interior?" He turned and showered beam fire on the Raigo and its two Windam wing mates, but the Raigo let loose a storm of missiles. The Justice opened fire with its CIWS, tearing them down, but a pall of smoke rose up in front of him.

The metallic cargo corridors of the Arnhelm Colony spaceport rattled as a GINN emptied its machinegun clip into the oncoming trio of Windams, painted in the white and blue colors of the Earth Alliance Space Force. Two of the Windams stopped short and opened fire with their beam rifles, while the third lunged in low over the floor and chopped the GINN in two with a beam saber hack.

An instant later, the Gaia Gundam, piloted by Andrew Waltfeld, was there to slash the Windam in two with a downward hack from its own saber. The surviving Windams backed away, beam rifles blazing; the Gaia took cover behind its shield as Andy switched back to her beam saber. Behind him, a Strike Dagger and a ZAKU Phantom emerged with rifles firing, forcing the Windams down the hall back behind their shields. One of them squeezed off a shot that slammed through the Strike Dagger's cockpit, setting off a thundering explosion.

Andy threw the Gaia back through the flames, put it down on one knee, and yanked the sniper scope into position. In a heartbeat he had the sights over the cockpit of one of the Windams; in another he blew it apart with a single blast. But through the flashing flames he caught sight of another three Windams arriving, one of them with a hulking Doppelhorn Striker, and before he knew it the corridor was filled with artillery fire and the ZAKU Phantom on his right was blown to pieces.

With a burst of fire and a screech of snapping metal, the inner hatch gave way and the Gaia Gundam rushed out of the access passage, with Kira's Divinity Gundam and Shinn's Eclipse Gundam right behind it. Andy put himself back between the hatch and the two mobile suits as they roared through the colony sky.

"Shit, if we get too close to the shaft we'll blow the whole colony apart." Shinn grunted. "But too close to the walls and we'll put the civilians in danger!"

"Incoming!" Andy cried, and the three mobile suits darted apart to make way for a salvo of artillery shells. He turned his eyes towards the source, where an IWSP Dark Windam was streaking towards them, with four white and blue Windams of the Space Force in formation around it.

"Why you?" Kira screamed, both of his long-range beam cannons, twin plasma cannons and twin rail guns swiveling into their firing positions, even as the angel-winged machine leveled off both of its twin buster rifles.

"No, not in here!" Shinn yelled. "Close range!"

"Fuck that!" Kira shrieked, even as he pulled the trigger and the world went white.

Athrun Zala ground his teeth in frustration as he slowly backed into the colony cylinder, with Rau in front him, beam rifle blazing. Up ahead, the Dark Windams seized their chance, each of them hurling a pair of anti-armor penetrators at the Providence. He ducked to the side and returned fire with his rifle, but the Windams darted apart, and with a crash, one of the hatches burst open and the Raigo Gundam, now bearing its equivelent of the Sword Striker, rocketed into the fray.

"Him again!' Athrun snarled. The Raigo drew its beam saber with a flash, lighting up the long and pulsing beam saber blade, and charged.

Athrun drew both of his beam sabers, slammed them together, and swung up to parry the Raigo's blow. The blue and white Gundam surged forward anyway to knock the Justice back. Athrun backpedaled, but the Raigo clamped down its anchor onto the Justice's right arm and yanked it closer, and lined up its saber for a killing stab.

"You think that'll stop me?" Athrun roared, and brought up the Justice's leg to sever the anchor's cord with his beam blade. The Raigo darted back and deflected the Justice's saber blow with practiced ease.

Up above, Rau Le Creuset grunted as the three Slaughter Windams pummeled the Providence's shield, and he squinted through the flashing lights as they closed in for the kill. "I'm not through just yet!" Rau smirked, as the Providence blazed with a blood red light, and dodged to the right, leaving the beam sabers of the Slaughter Windams to harmlessly slash through brightly glowing afterimages. An instant later, the Slaughter Windams vansihed within huge fireballs as the Providence's DRAGOON units speared them with beam blasts.

Fire flashed around the Infinite Justice as its bisected beam rifle exploded, and Athrun jammed back the controls to dodge the Caliburn Raigo's furious saber swipe. Athrun saw his chance and rushed forward, and with a crash he swept the beam blade on his shield through the Raigo's saber hilt. An instant later, everything went to hell as the colony's shell suddenly began to crack, venting the atmosphere into the void of space.

The pilots of the IWSP Dark Windam, along with two of the four white and blue Windams, barely managed to dodge the hailstorm of firepower that was suddenly eminating from the Divinity Gundam. Even after obliterating two of the Windams, the searing blasts continued onwards, slamming into the colony wall and tearing through it as though it were made of paper. Instantly, hundreds of cracks lanced out from where the searing energy blasts had impacted, quickly encircling the colony's retaining wall and venting the atmosphere into space.

"Oops." Kira sarcastically grinned from within the cockpit of the Divinity Gundam.

"What the hell is wrong with you, Kira?" Athrun Zala's voice yelled, even as the Infinite Justice Gundam once again clashed its saber with that of the Raigo Gundam.

Kira merely smirked as the image on one of the Infinite Justice's sub-screens changed, showing a disgruntled and surprised man in a ZAFT military uniform.

"Father." Athrun said, nodding towards his rather distant parent.

"What the-?" Patrick Zala began, only to be interrupted by Kira.

"Could one reason you're so pissy, like Adolf Hitler, be because you might be a failed coordinator?" The ZAFT Council Chairman got very red in the face, before finally exploding in a series of expletives.

"I'll take that as a yes." Kira laughed, even as he closed the communications line.

"How am I supposed to take orders from a _Natural_?"

The question hung in the air on the bridge of the ZAFT Eternal-class cruiser Seraphim. Adolf Glasgow squirmed uncomfortably in his chair. It was a good question, and the blond-haired young man in the ZAFT Red uniform, with the conspicuous emblem of FAITH on his lapel, deserved an answer, at the very least.

"It won't be for long, Rudolf." Glasgow assured him. "But nobody knows these lunar cities better than he does, and we're going to need that expertise."

"We're Coordinators, commander!" Rudolf Wellington sputtered, slamming a hand down onto his console. "We don't need those subhumans to tell us how we should attack our enemies! Commander, we're the pinnacle of our species' evolution. What could he possibly have to offer us?"

Glasgow sat back and closed his eyes. "If we were the pinnacle of human evolution we wouldn't have to do this, Rudolf. Mr. Yamato will not be here for long. Just swallow your pride and endure it. That is as much a sign of a superior person as anything else."

Rudolf sneered. "Are you telling me to trust him, sir?"

"I'm telling you to obey him." Glasgow waved out the bridge windows, towards the array of cities, towards the Copernicus crater, stretching before them. "You're going to be in charge of the mobile suit teams defending the landing party. You're going to have to take directions from Mr. Akira Yamato, whether you like it or not. If you can't do that as though Yamato were a Coordinator and your commanding officer, then under my authority as the commander of this task force, I'm benching you on the ship, FAITH member or not." He narrowed his eyes. "Chairman Zala has given me explicit authority to carry out this operation by _any means necessary_, and if it means I have to put you in the brig, I will. Don't fuck this up."

Rudolf gritted his teeth and saluted. "Yes, sir."

Heaving a sigh, Glasgow sat back and returned his gaze to the city. "Besides, Mr. Yamato is good at what he does."

"Glad to hear you agree." Another voice spoke up. All eyes turned in surprise, towards Akira Yamato, striding onto the Seraphim's bridge with an air of extreme amusement. "And for what it's worth, Mr. Wellington, I can make a damn good stir-fry too." He brushed by the growling Rudolf with a laugh as he landed by Glasgow's chair. "So there's Copernicus, eh? First target?"

"Yes, but we're going to need targeting information."

Akira waved it off. "Easily done. Lunar cities are all built the same; industrial sectors on top, to air out pollutants and shit; commercial and residential sectors underneath. The latter have access points to the surface that the landing parties can use; the fleet's guns can deal with the industrial sectors. Copernicus is a bit different since it has an upper-class commercial block on the surface, but it won't require a change in our battle plan." He glanced over his shoulder with a smirk towards Rudolf. "And I'm sure you'll be up to the task of defending our landing party?"

"Of course." Rudolf snarled back.

"Copernicus will be the first target, for maximum effect, both economic and psychological," Glasgow interrupted, hoping to head off an argument. Yamato took a little too much delight in needling the aristocratic Rudolf sometimes. "After that, we'll hit Sagan City, then Theophilus, and the manufacturing centers at Humboldt City, and then we'll return to Messiah, as heroes." He sat back. "Begin the approach."

"You'd think going out for ice cream wouldn't end in gunfights and injuries." Shinn grumbled as he and Athrun raced through the Minerva's halls, towards the ventral hangar. Athrun shook his head with a sigh.

"I'm surprised they didn't run into trouble sooner." He said, keying open the hangar doors and diving through. "Come on, we'll take my car."

Shinn blinked. "Your car?"

"My Panamera." Athrun explained. They landed by an alcove in the side of the hangar where something was covered by a large tarp. Athrun flung it off, and Shinn immediately felt his jaw drop as Athrun gestured to it and spoke. "They wanted a fast ride back. They're going to get one."

"Holy shit." Shinn answered. The sleek, dark grey Porsche Panamera Turbo Convertible was an insanely expensive, five-door hatchback with a specially designed convertible hard-top; it was a supercar, really, something designed for performance, speed, handling, a car that was designed to perform more like a fighter jet on the ground. The Porsche Panamera Turbo Convertible was, as its name suggested, powered by a highly potent 4.8 liter, turbocharged V-8 engine, which generated 500 hp at 6,000 rpm and 568 lb-ft of torque. Shinn watched in awe as Athrun opened up a bench seat behind the driver and passenger's seats. "Where the hell did you get this?"

"Trade secret." Athrun said. "Get in. No time to lose."

Shinn dropped himself down into the front passenger seat and yelped in surprise as Athrun took off out the ventral vehicle hatch, tires squealing all the way.

"Shinn and Athrun just left," Luna explained as she and Meyrin walked down the Minerva's hallways. "Whatever is going on in there with Hope and the others, they'll take care of it."

"Without getting Copernicus Police Department all over them, I hope." Meyrin added.

The tires shrieked against the road and dozens of pedestrians turned in disbelief as Athrun's sleek Panamera Turbo slid across the pavement and straight into an open spot on the side of the road. Shinn vaulted out the door and rushed towards one of the alleys as Athrun kept watch behind, and Shinn noted fearfully that among the familiar points of life running through that alley, Hope was not among them.

He caught up with Talia, Aoi, and Allister around a corner. "Where's Hope?"

Talia slammed a fist against a wall. "They got her." She gasped. Shinn's stomach wrenched as he looked over Allister and Aoi's desolate faces. "Captured her...took her to the disused warehousing district of Copernicus."

"Jesus Christ." Shinn muttered. "Come on, we're getting back to the car." He led them back out to the street and watched them blink in surprise at the sight of an expensive super car with Athrun Zala behind the wheel. Athrun himself started up the car as he saw Talia shamble into the light, clutching her shoulder.

"Shit." He hissed. "Shinn, first aid kit under the passenger's seat. All of you, get in. Just what the hell is going on?" Once everyone had piled into the car, Athrun stomped on the gas pedal and the vehicle sped away towards the warehousing district.

Silence hung on the bridge of the Nova as the sleek, jet-black, Minerva-class warship hovered over the dusty lunar surface. Drifting near the command chair, Admiral Gendo Ikari glanced up towards the auxiliary display, where the Seraphim had so charitably provided a wire grid map of the sprawling lunar city of Copernicus. At least his job was simple: protect the Seraphim and, above all else, the landing party. They could not afford failure.

Ikari glanced up at Maya Ibuki, finding her peering thoughtfully at the map. "What is it?"

"The Minerva is there." She answered. "One of the outer docks, in the crater wall."

"What the hell is the Minerva doing here...?" Ikari muttered, and drifted down next to the captain's chair. "Did we catch anything on the way here?"

"No, sir." Maya replied.

"I see." Ikari looked back out the bridge windows, towards the city ahead. "That is odd. I thought they would be staying with their mothership."

"The Excalibur has dropped off the map since that attempted attack on Orb the other day." Maya pointed out. "The Minerva may have headed here to keep the Alliance distracted."

"True." Ikari put a hand to his chin thoughtfully. "Well, even if they're the legendary warship Minerva and they've got some fancy new Gundams, it's not a game changer for us." Fuyutsuki glanced up dubiously towards Ikari. "We have a couple of new machines up our sleeves too. And they may expect an attack." He smirked up at Copernicus. "But,_ they won't expect ours_."


	100. Tragedy at Copernicus Part 2

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 100**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

"This is the worst shortcut ever!" Aoi wailed, and to underscore her point, her angry voice echoed off the walls of the disused warehousing district of Copernicus.

At her side, Talia rolled her eyes, Allister frowned in what looked like agreement he did not want to vocalize, and Hope glanced over with annoyance at Talia. "All because you didn't want to wait in traffic."

"You saw how bad it was backed up! It would be Cosmic Era 2000 by the time we got back!" Talia exclaimed. "And besides, that's all because this little runt." She brought down her hand on Aoi's head just hard enough to elicit a startled squeak. "Insisted on missing our bus so she could eat an ice cream sundae the size of her head." She smirked triumphantly at Hope. "Which you bought for her."

"I can't believe you actually ate it all." Allister said quietly.

Hope shrugged. "I promised her I would do something cool for her."

"And that was the coolest ice cream sundae ever!" Aoi added with a grin.

"But then we missed our bus." Talia went on. "And so, here we are."

"Using the shortcut that you said was going to work." Allister pointed out, and then shut his mouth when Talia glared back at him.

"Shut up. We can get back into the docking bay through here." She pointed up ahead, towards a gate where a long row of docking bays in the crater wall could be seen through the thick transparent ceiling high above. "See? Now quit bitching."

Together they rounded a corner and Hope listened with half an ear as Aoi triumphantly defended her ice cream consumption prowess. She glanced over at Allister and caught his gaze, and returned it with a small smile that instantly made him blush. There was one upside to this relationship, whatever it was; she could make him blush on a whim, and that was cute and funny.

The others, at least, had had a good time, and that made Hope feel better. The positive energy helped push away her own problems, if only for a moment.

She froze in her tracks, catching her companions' attention. "What is it, Hope?" Allister started, his hand falling to his belt, where a handgun was hidden inside one of the pouches.

Hope blinked in disbelief, at the feeling of nearly a dozen people, how had she missed that? How had they gotten this close to her without be noticed?

"I see your senses are as sharp as we predicted, Hope." A new voice spoke, a voice she knew all too well.

She turned around and her blood turned to ice in her veins. Aoi hid behind her; Allister backed away protectively in front of her; Talia gasped in disbelief. The man before them, the hawkish nose, the goatee, the burning, baneful eyes,

Hope took a terrified step back. "F-Father...?"

Standing before them, hands behind his back, accompanied by a dozen well-armed men, Ulen Hibiki bared his teeth in a smile.

"It's been a long time, my little angel of death."

The armed men pressed forward with submachineguns leveled off. Standing in front of her trapped friends, Hope stared in fear at the man before her.

Ulen Hibiki was exactly as she had remembered. A chiseled, scowling face; dark gold eyes, a trim goatee that hid his mouth and framed his face so frighteningly. The world swayed around her and her memories took her back to that cold metal bed, with his face looming above her, triumphant in her agony.

Shinn and Athrun quickly stepped in front of their friend with a furious look, and Ulen seemed slightly surprised at their somewhat sudden appearance.

"Stand aside." Ulen ordered. "You're not the ones I'm interested in."

"Like hell we will." Shinn and Athrun responded in unison.

Ulen frowned and glanced over his shoulder. "In that case."

Before he could finish, Allister had lunged out from behind Athrun and slammed a flash grenade down on the ground at his feet. Ulen and the soldiers jumped back and turned away as light flooded out and a wall of sound slammed them head-on, and when Ulen could see and hear again he looked up, only to watch as a dark grey Porsche Panamera Turbo quickly sped away from him, the sleek vehicle heading towards one of the empty warehouses. The soldiers instantly opened fire on the car, only for the bullets to ricochet off the vehicle's MCPS armor, some of the rebounding bullets hitting soldiers and sending them to the ground. Ulen growled as he turned and walked towards one of the warehouses behind him.

"Athrun!" Talia yelled, even as the grey Porsche Panamera Turbo slammed into and straight through a solid steel door which had been preventing entrance into one of the warehouses. Less than ten seconds later, the Panamera barreled through the wall at the other end of the warehouse, the vehicle's MCPS armor easily absorbing the impact and sparing the sleek car from any damage.

A few minutes later, the sleek grey Porsche slipped onto the freeway leading towards Copernicus's upper-class commercial sector. It had been Allister's idea to make a beeline towards the most inhabited and frequented region of the city and make their way back to the ship through there, in hopes that the crowds and traffic would hide them from Ulen and his minions.

Finally, the Porsche pulled off the freeway, and onto the surface streets before eventually pulling into an alley and coming to a stop. Beyond the vehicle were the bright lights and sizable crowds of Copernicus's glitzy business district.

Hope's instincts suddenly shot to life and she whirled around, just in time to see a black Hummer H6 smash through a pile of wooden crates and screech to a halt in front of the Panamera. Athrun quickly threw the car into reverse and backed away, but even before the car had moved five feet, more of those heavily armed men swarmed into the alley, and Hope shrieked in surprise as rough hands opened her door and seized her, before then yanking her out of the car, and throwing her at someone's feet.

She looked up in fear at the sound of her father's laugh.

"Quite a workout you gave us, Hope." He chuckled, and nodded to the men. "Put her in. We're leaving."

Hope screamed in terror as the soldiers bound her arms and flung her into the backseat of the Hummer. One of the soldiers gestured towards the still idling Porsche Panamera Turbo, or more accurately, towards Athrun, Shinn, Talia, Allister, and Aoi. "What about them?" He asked.

"Kill them." Ulen said with a waveof his hand, and hopped into the truck.

The hum of the engine roared in Hope's brain, sending her thoughts scattering in a cloud of sickening fear. She struggled to push down the panic; her father sat in a seat across from her, staring coldly at her, sitting next to a man in an olive drab uniform; the rest of the cab was filled with men in combat fatigues and flak jackets, all with guns, all pointed at her. She looked away from her father, as the helplessness of her childhood bubbled up from her throat and the words he'd spoken seared her mind.

"I'll admit, I'm a bit relieved." Ulen finally spoke into the silence, even as he sat back and comfortably draped one leg over the other. "When we had you in incubation, I was afraid you weren't going to meet all of our standards. But I've been pleasantly surprised. We'll have you back to work for me in no time." He grinned. "And then all my plans will be back on schedule."

The uniformed man blinked and looked over at Ulen. "There's a lot here you haven't told me about her."

"There's a lot here you're paid not to know about her, Schroeder." Ulen said. "But my daughter is an extraordinary little girl. My angel of death."

Hope held back a sob. "I'm _not_ your angel of death, you asshole."

"I thought we'd had that conversation already." Ulen responded with a laugh. "You've always been a tool, Hope, and for the past few years the wrong people have been using you, but no longer." He grinned over at Schroeder. "You should be more excited, really. The Earth Alliance's best, the cream of the Phantom Pain's crop, have fallen in battle before her, and yet it is you, Franz Schroeder, who brings her to heel. What an addition to _your_ résumé."

Schroeder looked thoughtfully out the truck's windows, and Hope shivered under her father's icy gaze. "You killed my mother, you stupid fuck." She hissed at last. Hope wasn't about to let this madman know that she was immortal, and as a result, she was subduing all of her more divine abilities, although she was still in constant mental contact with her friends and family.

"Hope." Ulen scoffed. "You're still on that, are you?" He shrugged before the now questioning eyes of Schroeder and his men. "No, I didn't kill your mother. She was frail and sick and died of an internal hemorrhage that bled her to death before the doctors could open her up and repair the damage. Quite a tragedy, really, but there was no helping it. I don't know why you blame _me_ for it."

"Because you _made_ my mother give birth to me." Hope snarled, not knowing exactly why she felt this had to be brought up, and knowing that the men in the truck were squirming in discomfort at it. She lowered her head and fought back the tears. "Because...because of us."

"Oh, is _that_ what the trouble is?" Ulen chuckled. "Such a silly child. Lots of talent, but much to learn." He turned towards Schroeder. "How far out are we?"

"Another twenty minutes, probably. Traffic is heavy."

"Fine. I have a ship lined up to let us escape, and once we're clear of Copernicus, you, Mr. Schroeder, will be _richly_ rewarded."

He looked back at Hope with a chilling smile and said. "This is your destiny, Hope Yamato. To be an angel of death."

A faint smile crossed Hope's lips as she repeated. "My destiny?"

"Yes." Ulen answered, only for his jaw to drop in disbelief as a pair of blood red wings suddenly appeared on his daughter's back, the wings looking exactly like the ones on the ZGMF-X42S Destiny Gundam.

"Destiny is a funny thing, isn't it, Father?" Hope grinned as the thick ropes restraining her ankles and wrists suddenly snapped and fell away, even as what appeared to be a human spine, but was in reality a superheated whip, slid out of her right wrist. "Destiny is connected to fate, and fate is what guides us to our destiny." She continued, no longer surpressing her abilities. Hope was now utilizing some of her more god-like powers to keep the occupants of the vehicle calm, and to make sure that the vehicle didn't lose control and cause an accident.

"W-what are you?" Ulen stammered. Hope had allowed Ulen to retain full control of his emotions and voice, although he was otherwise unable to move.

"How could you not recognize me, Father?" Hope asked as she sat up, feigning offense. "I'm your daughter, your own flesh and blood."

"Could you _please_ try not to drive in a way that will get the Copernicus Police Department all over our asses?" Talia asked, as Allister finished bandaging her shoulder.

"Gods don't have to follow traffic laws." Athrun answered, as the Panamera's convertible hard-top opened up, the roof folding to stow itself underneath the vehicle's trunk lid. "Shinn, where are they?"

"Up on the freeway, northbound." Shinn said quietly, eyes squeezed shut and sweat beading on his brow. Athrun swerved up the onramp and wove his way into traffic. "She's not too far away..." He opened his eyes and scanned the vehicles ahead. "That brown combat truck up there. That one."

"And now that we're here." Allister spoke up. "How are we going to handle this? You want to pit them or something?"

"Not with all this traffic." Athrun answered. "Fold down the back seat and open the hatch behind it. You can reach into the trunk that way; I have some weapons in there."

Aoi did as instructed, and she, Allister, and Talia gaped inside the trunk of Athrun's car, at the dozen or so machineguns, assault rifles, grenades, and RPG shells inside.

"Athrun, why the hell do you carry a fucking RPG in the trunk of your car?" Talia asked.

Athrun shrugged. "Always be prepared."

"But how are we going to get her back?" Aoi sputtered. "We're not far from the docks, you know!"

Instead, Talia reached into the trunk and pulled out one of the smoke grenades. "I've got a better idea." She said, and looked back at Allister. "Hey kid, want to be an action movie star?"

Allister frowned. "I'm not sure I like where this is going."

"Drive up close to them so that Action Hero here can jump over." Talia said. "You, take this and throw it inside the car. Pull Hope out and jump back here with her." She looked over Athrun's shoulder. "Hero Boy, you can make it work, right?"

"If they start shooting at me, no." Athrun said. "It would be better to stop them."

"Shit, watch out!" Shinn yelled, and seized the wheel and yanked it to the side. The Starchaser squealed to the right as somebody leaned out the truck's window and opened fire with an assault rifle, hitting three other cars instead. Traffic came to a screeching halt with a vicious series of crashes that Shinn and Athrun immediately threw from their minds; Athrun slammed down the accelerator and pulled alongside the truck.

"Allister, _now!_"

Without sparing a thought, Allister seized the smoke grenade from Talia and vaulted off the car's trunk onto the truck's roof. With a grunt, he flung his legs up onto the roof, pulled himself up, pegged the grenade down through the machinegun turret's open hatch on top, and then stood back as thick white smoke billowed out.

"Jesus, the things I'll do for my family and friends." He grumbled, and then hooked his legs under the railing on the truck's roof and swung himself down into the cab. Fighting back tears, he found Hope stumbling to her feet with tears of her own; without another moment to lose, he grabbed her by the elbow with both his hands and hauled her up through the roof with more strength than he realized he possessed. "_There_ you are!" He yelled. "Jesus Christ, is the driver still going?"

Hope coughed for a moment. "The cab's separate from the driver's seat." She said, and looked over to the right, where a sleek sports car with several familiar faces was waiting. "Um, how are we getting off?"

"You aren't." Another voice added. Hope and Allister turned and saw Ulen standing in front of the roof hatch, pistol in hand, leveled off at Allister's head.

"Talia, _catch!_" Allister yelled, and promptly shoved Hope off the truck's roof. Athrun took his cue and rushed in to let Hope fall straight into the Panamera's rear seat. Ulen's eyes flashed in fury and he moved to fire, but Allister ducked, rushed forward, and knocked the gun from his hands. He reared back for a punch at the older man's face, but Ulen deflected it with surprising form and the two men found themselves locked in a flurry of blocked and traded punches.

"Allister, move!" Aoi shouted, and sprang up in the Panamera's back seat. Ulen threw himself onto the truck's roof as she opened fire with a submachinegun, and Allister took his opportunity to jump back into the Panamera. Athrun peeled away with a squeal of tires, zigzagged his way through frantically retreating traffic, and roared down a nearby off ramp.

Ulen got back to his feet with a scowl and watched them go, as Schroeder poked his head out the roof hatch and his men aired out the truck with open windows. "What the hell was _that?_" He exclaimed.

"Schroeder, get all your men on them at once." Gerhardt growled. "I can't believe you let them get that close. Send everyone. Alpha and Bravo teams included."

Schroeder blinked in disbelief. "Alpha and Bravo teams?"

"Don't question me!" Gerhardt snapped. "Do you want to get paid or not?"

For a moment, Schroeder stared questioningly at Gerhardt, but then threw a switch on his radio. "Alpha and Bravo teams, move in."

"So, Hope." Allister panted, as the Porsche sped down a different freeway. "I'm not sure I like your father."

Hope sat with her head in her hands as Talia tried to consolingly rub her shoulder with her mechanical hand. "Don't worry." She said. "I don't either."

"Shit, looks like they're not done yet." Athrun muttered. "In the back, get some guns out. Keep the RPG ready but out of sight."

"Wha, why?" Aoi started, and turned around. "Oh. That's not cool."

Hope glanced over her shoulder and felt her heart sink as she saw three more combat trucks like the one she had just escaped, rushing down the street after them. Allister quietly assembled the RPG inside the trunk, and all of them ducked down as someone leaned out the window and opened fire with a submachinegun.

"Okay, that's not good." Talia grunted.

Shinn leapt to his feet in the passenger's seat with an assault rifle in hand, a grenade launcher slung underneath, and with a crash, he slammed the grenade through the truck's windshield, and ducked back down as the whole thing exploded in a flash of fire. Athrun seized the chance to duck down a side street, weaving in and out of traffic and ignoring the angry shouts and hysterical screams, but another truck followed, bullets flying.

"Jesus, only with you guys does ice cream turn into gunfights in moving cars." Shinn growled. "How is this going to work out?"

"Motherfuckers need to just _leave us alone!_" Talia shouted, and with that, she seized another rifle with her left hand and fired it into the truck's windshield, killing its driver and sending it careening out of control into a wall. Athrun veered back onto the main road at the next opportunity and went back to work through the traffic.

"Oh, no fair." Allister breathed.

Athrun hissed a curse and yanked the wheel to the side, screeching towards the side of the road, as a helicopter hovered into view overhead and let loose a burst of machinegun fire that ripped up the pavement and sent cars veering in all directions.

"_That's fucking cheating!_" Aoi screamed.

"My father." Hope whimpered, and squeezed her eyes shut in terror. "He's not going to give up..."

"He will if _I_ have anything to fucking say about it." Talia growled.

"Allister, get the RPG ready." Athrun instructed. "I won't have a choice..."

The Panamera roared off onto the freeway, weaving its way through traffic, with a green attack helicopter rushing after it.

"What the hell is going on in there?" Arthur cried, whirling around from the auxiliary screen. Up by the mapping console, Meyrin stared in disbelief at the news reports, of the gun-wielding men in combat trucks and the helicopter currently chasing down six people in a sleek, powerful sports car.

"I thought they had all this under control." Meyrin grumbled, and turned towards Luna at the communications station. "Luna, get Andy out there in the Gaia. Tell him that Shinn and the others need help. Whoever is behind all this nonsense probably can't match the Gaia Gundam with Andy at the controls."

"Right." Luna said as she reached for her headset. "And may I suggest that we never send any of those guys out for pizza _ever again?_"

Meyrin scratched her head and watched the smoke rising up in Copernicus. What _was_ going on in there?

The ground shook and the air crackled with bullets as Athrun Zala navigated the densely packed, frantic streets of Copernicus with an attack helicopter in pursuit. He glanced up at the rear-view mirror, still there, and nothing up ahead to ward it off or snag it.

"Allister, that RPG." He said quickly. "I'm going to duck around a building coming up; you get the RPG out and as soon as you've got a clear shot, fire. Don't give them a chance to retaliate."

"Right."

Athrun gritted his teeth and glanced over his shoulder; still there. He pushed Talia's concern and Hope's churning vortex of emotions out of his mind and focused on the path in front of him, his instincts, coordinator and natural, guiding his hands.

With a start, he jerked the wheel to the side and sent the Panamera into a smoking, screeching turn, whipping the car around the corner. Allister sprang to his feet with the RPG shouldered; a second went by, the helicopter followed.

A flash of smoke and a thundering crash later, the RPG shell slammed headfirst into the helicopter's canopy and blew it apart.

"Alright!" Aoi shouted, pumping her fist in the air. "Sweet!"

With a sigh, Athrun pulled back onto the main road.

Instead, Shinn seized the wheel again and pulled the car aside as a green, pulsing beam slammed into the road and sent up a wall of fire. The Panamera skidded to a halt and then the world trembled as four Strike Daggers, painted in black, gray, and orange, landed on the road around them.

"Okay." Athrun groaned. "Now what?"

"This is the second time in my life I've been chased by mobile suits in a motor vehicle." Shinn grumbled. "Athrun, we're more maneuverable. Floor it."

Athrun did as instructed and the Panamera lurched ahead, but he slammed on the brakes just as quickly as one of the Daggers vaulted over him and came down with a crash, beam rifle leveled off.

"Shit, shit, now what?" Talia yelled.

A moment later, the Dagger up ahead seemed to be lifted up into the air, and with an earth-shattering shriek of torn metal, the Gaia Gundam vaulted into the sky and slammed its beam saber through the Dagger's cockpit.

Shinn looked over at Athrun. "Now! Go!"

The Panamera screamed off back down the street and the Gaia came down with a slam, beam saber blazing, glowering down the street at the three remaining Strike Daggers. In the cockpit of the Gaia Gundam, Andrew Waltfeld watched with relief as Athrun's car made its escape, and turned his eyes towards the Daggers with a scowl. "You'll pay for this unprovoked attack."

"Oh shit!" Athrun yelled, desprately swerving to the left as one of the disabled Strike Daggers suddenly came crashing down upon the speeding super car, a gernade in its right hand..

"What do you mean, smoke?" Ikari muttered and peered on the Nova's bridge at the auxiliary screen, where the maximum magnification displayed puffs of smoke and fire underneath the dome that covered Copernicus's glamorous, or, rather, formerly glamorous, upper-class commercial sector. "What the hell is happening in there?"

"I don't know." Akira said with his arms crossed. "But this actually bodes well for us, commander. Whatever is happening, it will distract Copernicus's defense force long enough for the landing party to reach its objectives."

Ikari stroked his beard thoughtfully. "I suppose. And even if they did come out to fight, if Intel is right, all they've got to rely on are Strike Daggers sold as surplus by the Alliance military."

"Best not to take chances." Akira added. "Shall we begin?"

Ikari threw a switch on his chair's armrest. "Adolf, do you see smoke underneath Copernicus's dome?"

The green-haired man on the Seraphim nodded his agreement. "Are you thinking we should begin?"

"As Mr. Yamato suggested, the defense force is probably distracted now." Ikari said. "What do you think?"

Adolf grinned. "Let's go for it."

"Very well." Ikari said, even as Fuyutsuki threw the switch again. "All ships of Task Force Nihilo, this is Commander Fuyutsuki speaking. Begin the descent."

The guns of his fleet took aim and opened fire, blasting apart the upper levels of the industrial sector and moving downward, and Ikari sat back with a quiet sigh.


	101. Tragedy at Copernicus Part 3

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 101**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

"Dammit!" Shinn Asuka shouted as he ducked behind the smoldering remains of Athrun Zala's destroyed Porsche Panamera Turbo, bullets sailing over his head before he managed to get behind cover.

He had managed to fire a burst from his beam sub-machine gun, but the searing energy blasts had missed his target completely. He had barely passed his marksmanship test all those millenia ago in ZAFT, and he hadn't practiced nearly as often as he should have, and it was now showing when it mattered. All of the beam blasts had sailed to the right of his intended target, and gotten his attention. And now he was pinned.

"What's going on?" Talia growled, her hands clutching her beam pistol.

"War." Athrun said coolly, before he then got up onto his knees and fired two bursts from his own projectile assualt rifle before laying back down behind the crates, inbetween Talia and Shinn.

"One of them is neutralized." Athrun said.

"Yeah." Shinn asked. "Of how many?"

"At least a dozen." Athrun answered. "Probably more"

"Great." Shinn replied, sarcasm lacing his voice.

"These people are nothing more than terrorists." Allister growled, even as he utilized his mental abilities to probe the mnds of their attackers.

Shinn leaned out again, this time intending to hit his target. The enemy wasn't stupid at all, they had already taken cover, two of them behind a burning Sport Utility Vehicle, possibly a Chevy Tahoe, the flames obscuring their forms. Two others were behind a mobile suit hangar. One of them was in a hangar herself, specifically the Strike Dagger hangar.

Shinn chose to attack the Strike Dagger hangar terrorist next. One of the blasts hit her, somewhere in her upper body, and another struck her left shoulder. Her screams were still audible despite all of the noise and she fell to the ground, clearly out of the battle if not dead.

Aoi crawled up beside Shinn, wielding her beam assault rifle in one hand and a flash grenade in the other.

As the Gaia disabled the last Strike Dagger, Andy spoke through the open communications line. "Minerva, send out the Eclipse, Freedom, Justice, Infinite Justice and Strike Freedom." A few seconds later, the five requested mobile suits screamed out of the Minerva's launch bays.

The ground rumbled a few seconds later as five Gundams landed near Athrun's group, and they rapidly sprinted to the newly arrived machines, quickly boarding them. Athrun in the Infinite Justice, Shinn in the Eclipse, Talia in the Justice, Aoi in the Freedom and Allister in the Strike Freedom. As the group boarded their machines, a terrible thought occured to Shinn, and the crimson-eyed man quickly accessed the communications line. "Hey, Athrun?"

"What?" Athrun asked, he already knew this was going to be bad, judging by Shinn's tone of voice.

"Do you think they hijacked anything else besides Strike Daggers?" Shinn asked. "That can't be all what they were really after."

"Aw, crap." Athrun rasped a moment later.

His voice filled the common channel an instant later, even as Shinn instinctively flipped to it. "To any and all Copernicus City pilots, this is Captain Athrun Zala of Celestial Being, can you confirm that the enemy hasn't stolen anything else besides Strike Daggers? Answer me."

"I've got no idea!" Screamed a panicky pilot, probably under heavy fire.

An older, more knowledgable voice answered a second later. "This is Commander Ernest Hemingway of the Copernicus City Defensive Forces, I've heard nothing yet. Communicating with the ground and base is sporadic. All I know is that we're starting to beat them now, we outnumber them and they didn't take as many as we had thought."

_'That's good.'_ Shinn thought, relieved.

"That's why they ran into the city when we began to overwhelm them." The older voice said with bitterness. "They're hoping to use the buildings, civilians and ground troops to their advantage. They trying to turn the city into a massive hostage."

"I know." Athrun said. "Thank you. Just keep me updated, Commander."

"Will do, Captain Zala." The older voice said. Before Shinn switched back to the squad's channel, though, the older voice spoke again, and he sounded a lot less sure of himself.

"Wait, I see something at the edge of the city. It's an odd mobile suit...I think it's a..."

"What?" Athrun asked.

"It's coming right towards me, it's rushing me head-on!" The older voice said, in a tone that was approaching panic.

"We're coming, Commander! Shinn, Talia, hurry! We have to help him!" Athrun said.

"I'm not doing enough damage, it's got a beam saber out!" Screamed the Commander's voice.

"We'll be there in ten seconds, Commander!" Athrun responded, hoping to reassure the other pilot. "What is it? What's the mobile suit? A Windam?"

A few tense seconds later, the commander screamed something that no one would ever forget. "No, it's...it's a Gundam!" With that, the line went dead.

Shinji Ikari couldn't go five seconds without hearing Rei Ayanami's cackling over the radio. In fact, it was borderline incessant.

"Oh my God, oh my God!" Rei exclaimed. "They're just like little bottles to shoot at! This is so easy!"

_'Speak for yourself, I can barely control this thing.'_ Shinji thought. The Chaos was a lumbering monster in his hands, good for squishing infantry but he hadn't been able to do much else. It had been about a minute ago when he had figured out how to use the beam assault cannon equipped to his machine.

And he was borderline horrified with the results.

The Strike Daggers were completely hopeless when faced with the cannon. It was like a heavy machine-gun when deployed against infantry, it tore Strike Daggers open at a frightening pace. Windams could withstand the punishment better but even they collapsed under the withering fire if they took too many shots. The only problem was, he was fast running out of power, and he had wasted many, many shots by firing them into buildings and the ground instead of hitting Strike Daggers and Windams.

He heard his father's voice then, calm and collected. "We have accomplished our mission, we have all five Gundams in our possession. We're going to need to pull back and retreat. The remaining hijacked Windams and Strike Daggers will buy us time."

"How?" Shinji asked as he watched Rei cleave a Strike Dagger through the cockpit with her beam lance. She laughed uproariously again, as the Strike Dagger anticlimatically slammed into the ground in two pieces.

Rei's highly amused voice entered the conversation then. "Why, silly, we're going to blow open the colony and fly through the hole, that's what."

He then heard the ultimate commander of this operation, Ristuko Akagi, speak. Apparently she had stolen a Gundam as well. "All right, I have Savior, Shinji has Chaos, Rei has Abyss, and Hikari has Impulse. I've placed Toji in command of the defense since he has Wing Zero. They can't fall back until we're out of here. The quicker we leave, the quicker they can escape too."

"But I'm having so much fun!" Rei whined.

"Save it, Rei." Ritsuko barked. "You're forgetting we're operating on a limited power supply. You don't want to lose power here."

"Hmmph." Rei huffed.

_'At least someone can rein her in.'_ Shinji thought.

A male voice entered the conversation, which Shinji assumed was Toji. "We can't hold out for much longer and to make matters worse, the douchebags from Celestial Being have arrived."

"More cannon fodder." Rei said with relish.

"Hold them back as long as you can. Don't let them notice we're escaping." Ritsuko instructed.

"Got it, ma'am." The pilot of a stolen Strike Dagger replied. "We won't fail you."

Ritsuko's voice instantly became filled with authority. "All right, everyone in a Gundam, follow me. We'll blow our way out and head to the rendezvous point. Let's not let everyone's deaths be in vain."

"Douchebags!" Athrun screamed in fury, as the Infinite Justice Gundam dropped its mirage colloid and sliced a Strike Dagger in half from crown to crotch, before streaking towards the five retreating Gundams.

"Yeah, you people are douchebags!" Hikari roared, as the Impulse brandished a beam saber from its flight back, ignited the weapon and clashed with the Infinite Justice. "What's wrong, can't handle the truth?"

"And God said; let there be silence." Another voice calmly spoke over every single communications line as a searing beam blast suddenly sliced through the head of the Impulse Gundam, forcing the white mobile suit to break the saber clash and fall back. Athrun smirked, instantly taking advantage of the situation, he kicked the Impulse away before then severing its arms and legs, watching as it crumbled to the ground in five seperate pieces.

Two Strike Daggers, both equipped with Jet Strikers, pulled up desperately to avoid a vicious burst of beam rifle fire from the Infinite Justice Gundam, and Athrun seized his chance with a scream to bury the Infinite Justice's rocket anchor into the chest of one of them, then pull it close and impale it on the beam boomerang's blade. The second Dagger backed away to shower the Infinite Justice with missiles, but Athrun darted forwards regardless and speared the second Dagger on a beam rifle blast.

A moment later, he vaulted back into the sky as a storm of beam bolts ripped up the lunar surface beneath him. He snapped his attention up towards the black sky, just in time to see a golden, gleaming Windam, equipped with am IWSP Striker, slam its beam sword down onto the Infinite Justice's beam shield, and a man's cackling laughter filled his cockpit.

"To think I'd get to fight Athrun Zala, of all people!" The voice cried, and Athrun narrowed his eyes at the blond man on his auxiliary screen, in a blue ZAFT flight suit. "As though today wouldn't be a good enough day as it is!"

Athrun frowned. "And just who the hell are you?"

The Windam surged forward, flinging the Infinite Justice back; Athrun jerked the controls backwards as the Windam brought its left arm around, a glowing heat rod whipping by. "Rudolf Wellington, the one and only!" He yelled. The golden Windam went back on the attack with both its beam guns, and the green bolts slammed uselessly against the Infinite Justice's beam shield. "I get the chance to kill one of the greatest race-traitors ever to our people! Fortune smiles on me after all!"

The Infinite Justice rattled and Athrun ground his teeth as the Windam brought down its sword again to punch him backwards. He darted up over the heat rod and raised his rifle, only for the Windam's second heat rod to lance out, curl its way around the rifle's barrel, and destroy his beam rifle with a surge of electricity. Athrun backflipped away from the Windam's fire and abandoned his rifle, and as he came back down with a crash, he drew a beam saber and clenched his fists around the Infinite Justice's controls.

"Ah, want to die like a knight, do you?" Rudolf chuckled, and the Windam pointed its sword at the Infinite Justice with a flourish. "Yes, you must be trembling by now! Are you remembering who I am yet, Zala? Rudolf Wellington, the Golden Swordsman?"

"I have no idea who the hell you are!" Athrun shot back. "Nor do I really care!"

Fury flashed across Rudolf's features as he snarled. "Well, you will." With that, the Windam charged.

A pulsing red beam sizzled by the Eclipse Gundam and through one of its afterimages as Shinn Asuka roared into the battle. He fired back with his beam rifle and up ahead, the Launcher Dagger that had shot at him ducked aside, just in time for two Sword Daggers to let loose a torrent of beam rifle fire. Shinn threw the Eclipse towards the lunar surface and then darted aside as a third Dagger rushed in with a powerful overhead hack with a beam axe. He whipped around and fired his beam rifle, pounding a shot through the Dagger's chest and blowing it apart, and then took off before the other three could catch him.

"And then there's you!" Shinn shouted, as the Eclipse exchanged its rifle for its anti-ship sword, the beam blade flashing to life. He whirled around to bring the sword to bear on a Sword Dagger behind him, sawing it in two. The Daggers below fired again as their comrade's machine exploded and Shinn threw his mobile suit back on the defensive.

He blinked in surprise as something touched his senses and shot a glance to his right, where he saw two more Jet Daggers line up with missile launchers in both hands. They fired the heavy missiles down towards Copernicus City, the projectiles slamming into the metal surface and ripping it open. The pair of Daggers then abandoned the launchers and darted aside, just as a volley of beams from the Minerva slammed through and blasted the entire area apart in a shower of flames.

Shinn dug the Eclipse's feet into the lunar dirt and readied his sword as the Daggers moved in, but a moment later another green beam lanced out of the smoke and blew the Launcher Dagger apart, and the Freedom Gundam corkscrewed into the fray with a volley of beam rifle fire.

"Vulture Two reports that the gas has reached the lower residential sectors." Fuyutsuki reported from his chair by the captain's seat, glancing across the mapping console towards Gendo. "And Banshee One says that nobody has yet tried to retake the controls for the circulation system."

Leaning back in his chair, Gendo flashed a victorious smile. "Then it all went pretty much flawlessly." He said with a shrug. "Tell Banshee One to destroy the circulation controls and lock the system open. Vultures will abandon the cylinders, they're pretty much empty by now anyway, and return to the fleet. I think our work here is done." He idly stared down at his fingernails. "Nasty stuff, that Sarin Gas. Kills in about a minute if you get enough of it in there, and we injected enough to kill ten million people. They must be almost all dead by now."

Fuyutsuki looked back towards Copernicus, bearing some small scars of the battle on its outer surface and studded with empty gas canisters. He hated to think of what was going on inside. Nerve gas did awful things to people, and Copernicus had always been fairly neutral. He couldn't really say they deserved this.

He shook his head. There was no such thing as neutrality. Not in this war. "Order all units to retreat at once. Fire the flares and activate the blinders. Once we get our troops back aboard, set course at top speed for our next target." He glanced back at Gendo. "The operation seems to have gone flawlessly. Congratulations, Ikari."

Gendo grinned back. "It's what I do."

Silence reigned on the Minerva's bridge as the auxiliary screens showed camera pans of Copernicus's interior, and the bleeding, filthy corpses strewn throughout the streets. Cars smashed, bodies twisted into hideous poses, fires burning, all victims of an invisible cloud of death. The Minerva's bridge crew watched in silent horror.

"That ZAFT fleet is retreating behind blinders and combat flares." Arthur started quietly with a wavering voice.

Meyrin swallowed hard and turned away from the image of a dead woman with a foaming mouth and a face that looked too much like Luna's for her to bear. "Follow their course." She ordered softly. "Lexi, is the Tannhäuser ready?"

"Y-Yes ma'am." Lexi answered.

"Then fire it and clear out the debris in front of us." Meyrin ordered.

The Minerva rocked as the Tannhäuser sliced through the wreckage blocking the port's opening, and with a thundering blast, the way was clear and the debris rained down on the Minerva's hull as the warship ignited its thrusters and exited the docking port. Meyrin peered through the smoke, at the dozen empty gas cylinders standing sentinel over the dead lunar landscape, and the dead cityscape underneath.


	102. Spiral of Insanity

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 102**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

Lacus Clyne sighed as she silently stood on the Excalibur's massive observation deck. Suddenly she heard footsteps from behind her. She turned around, and saw Kira. And he looked horrible.

"Kira?" She asked.

"Lacus, I'm losing it. Help me." He pleaded softly. He was going to collapse on the floor, but Lacus quickly caught him and slowly kneeled him to the ground. She was much stronger physically now than when she was human. She let Kira's head rest on her shoulder.

"Kira, Kira, it's all right." Lacus reassured him. "You're not crazy. I know you're not crazy."

"I am crazy, Lacus." The amethyst-eyed man whimpered. "You don't understand."

Lacus couldn't hide her skeptism in her voice, no matter how hard she tried. "Tell me why, then."

"Why does this little girl come to me in a dream and say everyone's going to die?"

Lacus paused. This wasn't the nightmare Kira usually had. Usually no one spoke to him in a civilized manner in his nightmares. They all screamed at him, in anger, fear, and sadness. Cradling broken, dead loved ones in their arms. Or, more often then not, they were zombie-like horrors, undead ghosts, making sure that he never rested until he would simply die.

"No one's going to die, Kira." Lacus said. "Everyone's safe."

"No one's going to be safe, Lacus." Kira replied. "The girl said something's going to happen. From someone I thought I could trust."

"You can trust me, Kira." Lacus smiled.

"That's what I'm afraid of." Kira whimpered.

Lacus got angry then, but she instantly stifled it. The last thing Kira needed was a tongue-lashing. In his state, if she got angry, he would completely lose it. Apparently, some deep, dark part of Kira's mind was messing with him, and he was trying to drive himself crazy. She had to fix it before it was too late.

"Kira, if I were going to betray you, do you think I would've done it by now?" Lacus asked.

"I don't know anymore." Kira replied.

"Kira, I have stood by you for so many centuries. Even after since this started happening." Her voice was beginning to break. "I have done nothing but support and love you. I don't want you to...to..." She was silently crying now. She was going to lose him, she could feel it. And this morning he had started out so much better than usual too. Why was this happening? Why couldn't she slay these demons that assaulted his mind and heart?

"I'm sorry, Lacus." Kira apologized. "Please don't cry. You're right. It's not you."

His grip on her back became tighter. Lacus let out a brief gasp. "Kira..."

"You could've hurt me anytime you wanted, but you never do." He continued. "Instead, all I've done is hurt you."

"Kira, don't do this to yourself." Lacus pleaded. "And don't tell me you're going to listen to some little girl conjured in front of you."

"I've never seen this little girl before." Kira sighed. "She has this dark hair and eyes...and she doesn't look evil. Just sad."

"Sad?" Lacis asked.

"Sad." Kira nodded.

Lacus was confused now, evnn as she thought. _'So this girl isn't tormenting him with anything except with the words she speaks? The girl isn't accusing him of being a mass murderer, a war criminal?'_

Kira continued to ramble. "She told me she wanted to protect her big brother, but she wouldn't be able to from this. She said I have to protect everyone. Someone I trust...someone probably very close to me, like Athrun or Murrue...is going to do something terrible soon. Something that'll kill everyone."

"Did she name anyone?" Lacus asked.

"No." Kira answered.

"Then this is just another nightmare, Kira." Lacus concluded. "This isn't anything supernatural. You nearly started to fight me just a moment ago because of it, right?"

"Yeah?" Kira looked away.

"It's nothing, Kira. Just something trying to tear you apart." Lacus continued. "Now stand up, and I'll help you to bed. I'll be right by your side all night once I'm done here."

He took a deep breath. "O...Okay."

She turned and kissed him softly on the cheek. "Good. Now get up."

She brought him to his feet, and held his hand all the way to the bedroom.

Kira Yamato's vision was blurry, but he saw something dark, with faint blue spheres, right in front of his face. There was a faint light behind the dark figure, a crack that gave a miniscule glimpse at the world behind whatever was enclosed all around him.

"Kira, it was just a nightmare. Wake up." The voice was firm, feminine. He blinked several times, and saw a distorted visage of Lacus Clyne staring at him. Her flesh was rotting, blood seeped from her several injuries.

Her voice suddenly took on a demonic air. "Kira..."

He lashed out at this hideous monster or whatever was masquerading as Lacus and leapt off of the bed, backing away from the downed figure. He stared at his hands. Full of blood. He could see the blood pouring from his hands. He blinked several times, trying to wish it away. He could almost hear the blood beginning to splash into the ground.

"Kira, stop! Shake it off!" The voice said, sounding much more like Lacus than before. Kira blinked several times, trying to see whether this was true, whether he was hallucinating.

"Calm down. It's okay." Kira looked up from his bloody hands to see a normal Lacus Clyne approaching him, her light pink hair unusually disheveled, her famous pin missing from her hair. Her blue eyes gleamed with concern, and, much to Kira's momentary relief, she looked normal. Like he was back in reality, or whatever reality was, anyway.

He looked at his hands. They glistened with sweat, but there wasn't anything else. Certainly no blood. Clearly, he had been hallucinating. A leftover from his nightmare had plagued him upon being woken up. The images he had seen had been elements of the nightmare, and he had transferred it to the reality. This was real. Lacus was real, she was here, flesh and blood, alive, without possession, without being a reanimated corpse. He hadn't been crushing people. He wasn't an unstoppable berserker.

Or perhaps the reality was hideous and he was dreaming right now. But before he could think about that possibility, even consider it, Lacus had wrapped her arms around him. Her head rested upon her chest, and stray strands of her hair tickled his chin and lips. Kira took a deep breath, and exhaled. His shaking arms gripped Lacus in a tight embrace.

"That's right, calm down. Deep breaths." Lacus sounded tired, more exhausted than she used to. The last three years, since the final battle of the so-called Great War, had universally been spent giving Kira makeshift therapy. He hadn't made a lot of progress and frequently relapsed into delusions and insanity, and it was starting to wear on both of them, especially Lacus. Kira wished he could do something to improve, so that her patience and compassion would finally be rewarded, but the nightmares continuously erased every amount of progress he made.

He suddenly realized that Lacus sounded injured, too. "Did...did I hit you again, Lacus?" He asked, fearing the worst.

"Just a blow to the stomach. You weren't yourself, don't worry about it." Despite the reassurance, Kira could sense the physical pain Lacus was in through the tone in her voice, and he looked away, staring at a random point in the wall.

_'I hurt her again...I'm no better than a wife-beater, am I? She doesn't deserve this. She doesn't deserve me.'_ Kira thought.

"I-I'm sorry, Lacus. I-I didn't m-mean to...God." He buried his face into her shoulder, letting her nightshirt absorb his tears. It quickly became soaked with his hot tears, and only more poured out with each pat on the back Lacus gave him.

It was a miracle she had remained this tolerant. Why she had sacrificed so much of her political influence, why she had ignored her musical career in favor of helping an orphanage and trying to keep him sane was beyond Kira's comprehension. She constantly told him why, but he wasn't sure whether he believed it or not. She seemed sincere, but a small part of him remained suspicious. Perhaps she was punishing herself for sending him into more and more battles long after he had been pushed beyond his limit.

He was never sure with Lacus Clyne. After all, when he had first met her, she had seemed to be an innocent, somewhat loopy songstress. But she was slowly revealed to be far more than she seemed, and Kira felt that there were still layers to this young woman he had yet to see.

_'Am I going to break her? What if I go crazy and kill her?'_ Kira asked himself, as he did every time he had one of these nightmares. He wondered if the nightmare would continue to stick with him, long enough that he would change his reality into something like his dreams. And Lacus then would really be a corpse.

"Take a deep breath, Kira. You can do it. It's all right." Kira obeyed, forcing oxygen through his nose and down his constricted throat. He coughed as his throat protested against the surge of dry air, and Lacus told him to breathe like that again. And repeated it once more. Eventually, his heartbeat slowed to a halt, and his frantic grip slowly loosened.

Probably ten minutes passed in this deliberate, cautious dance of sorts. There was no way for Kira to tell the time, but when he had inquired once Lacus had told him it usually took anywhere from five minutes to two hours to get him calmed down. To Kira, this felt like one of the shorter ones. The nightmare hadn't been as long, and hadn't been as explicitly detailed as some of the others. Or perhaps it was the worst one of the lot and Lacus had simply improved at comforting him.

At least the fact that he still cared what happened to Lacus, and that he was afraid of hurting her reminded him that he was still human. Despite everything since the Bloody Valentine War, he had managed not to regress into something less than human. That was only mild consolation, but it was something that he could hold onto. And reason for Lacus not to give up yet.

Finally, his eyes dried. Perhaps sensing this, Lacus loosened her embrace and Kira was able to stare into her beautiful blue eyes. "Are you all right now, Kira?"

Kira nodded slowly. "Yeah. I guess."

One of her famed, dazzling smiles crept across her face. "That's excellent. This one was shorter than usual. Maybe you will get better, Kira. Just stay strong, all right? You're going to get through this."

"I hope so." Kira couldn't think of anything else to say.

Lacus curled her hands around his own, and she led him to the bed. They sat down on it, and the bed creaked softly underneath their combined weight. "Just rest right now. Remember that I'm here. We've both got a bit of work to do, tomorrow, getting this place ready for the others to come back."

"Yeah. You're okay, right? I don't want to-" Kira began.

"I'm fine. Now lay back, and try to fall asleep." Lacus smiled. "I'm with you if anything happens, okay?"

Kira rested back, pulling the blanket above his body, He felt Lacus curl her left arm around his midsection, and after an initial moment of awakward silence, he realized he had a question to ask. It was one he asked frequently, for he was never sure what was the real answer. It was the same one, but he could never bring himself to trust Lacus. He didn't know why. Perhaps all the betrayal and misdirection that happened to him in the war still affected his mindset. There was no real answer. His memories back when he was happy, back when he had a small group of friends and lived in peace seemed so distant now, almost like an alternate reality or an alien society.


	103. From Nightmare to Reality

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 103**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

Kira and Lacus cautiously approached the squad of mobile suits which now surrounded their mansion. The pilots were ready to shoot at a moment's notice. Three of the pilots exited their machines and approached them. "You're Kira Yamato, aren't you?"

"Yes." Kira snarled. "And you are a dumbass."

The soldier ignored the insult and made a signal to one of his squadmates, and the squadmate nodded and went on the com, saying something Kira couldn't make out at this distance.

The soldier then looked back at Kira. "You're coming with us."

"He will not!" Lacus yelled.

The soldier aimed his gun at Lacus. "You have no say in this."

"Yes, I do!" Lacus shrieked. "Kira doesn't deserve whatever you're going to do to him!"

The soldier sighed. "I don't want to kill you, Lacus Clyne. Your survival complicates things for ZAFT and the imposter they're using."

Kira was shocked. "You know that there's an imposter Lacus?"

"Of course I do. I have excellent intel on the subject." The soldier said. "And that's exactly why I don't want to shoot your girlfriend unless she forces the issue. She makes things much more dangerous for ZAFT, which is useful for our purposes."

"So you people are OMNI Enforcers." Kira growled.

"What tipped you off? Who else is still fighting ZAFT but us? Now look, give yourself up, Kira Yamato, or I will shoot Lacus Clyne, and capture you anyway. You know there's no way out of this."

Kira ground his teeth. The battle had to have triggered some alarm, but there was no way of knowing how long it would be before Orb mobile suits would get here. Kira decided to play that tactic anyway. "You know that the longer I stall, the more likely it'll be that Orb will do something about this."

"You'd be right, Kira Yamato, if it weren't for the fact that we used an EMP before deploying. All electronics, including communications, have been fried in a mile-long radius. A good thing too, or our pretty teacher here would have raised the alarm."

Kira raised his hands. "Fine, then."

"Kira, wait!" Lacus cried.

"Lacus, there's no choice. The children are the future, remember?"

Lacus looked away. "They're going to make you kill."

"I know that. I have to deal with it." Kira wished he was a quarter as confident as he sounded. His brave mask was precisely that, a mask, trying to cover up all of his fear and trepidation over what was going to happen to him.

Kira stepped forward, and the soldier immediately restrained him with the handcuffs, just like the ZAFT commando had.

"Good." The soldier said. "I don't like killing kids."

He quickly pushed Kira along, and the amethyst-eyed man couldn't bear to look back at Lacus. After all of her efforts, after killing so many people to save him, it had all been for nothing. All he could hope for now was for Lacus to stay strong.

The soldier got on the radio. "Our operation is a success. Tell that to the commander."

_'They know I'm not okay and they're still going to use me for something. What the hell is wrong with these guys?'_ Kira thought. _'Why do they want to use me? Are they gong to use me as a weapon?'_

In the end, the Ultimate Coordinator, to the Earth Alliance, was not a person. Just a weapon to be aimed. Kira only hoped that there would be enough of himself left so that he wouldn't be a monster. He didn't want to become what he had seen in his nightmares. He wouldn't be able to bear it.

"I'm only trying to help my country. Our country." Unato Sieran nervously spoke, even as Cagalli Yula Athha stood a few feet in front of him, wielding a pistol in her right hand and a taser in her left. "We sold the Destroy Gundam to the Earth Alliance for precisely that reason. Nobody in Orb wants to fight this war. But the Earth Alliance we're dealing with is much more ruthless, and more under the thumb of Blue Cosmos, than the Earth Alliance of the previous two wars. That was a huge miscalculation on all of our parts."

"Who did you speak to?" Cagalli asked.

"It was a man named Lord Djibril. He's a higher-up, if not the higher-up of Blue Cosmos. I don't know why he's so interested in a Coordinator, but...he wanted your brother, even though your brother isn't exactly combat-capable right now."

"Don't play dumb with me. You know as well as I do that the asshole named; Djibril, will just break Kira until he's nothing but a mindless puppet flying that monster we built."

Unato swallowed again. "Yes."

"And you handed Kira to him anyway?" Cagalli growled.

Unato's mouth quivered. "Yes."

"You handed my brother over to a man who will be manipulating Kira's abilities, and taking advantage of his mental state, to make him a genocidal monster."

Now Unato's palms were starting to shake. "Yes."

There was silence for a second. Even Yuna, who was shaking violently, like a boiling egg about to split open, didn't dare to speak.

Unato began talking again. "I did not want to become known as the man who took Orb into an all-out war. Our conscripts would be greatly demoralized before they'd ever see a battlefield, and no amount of motivation will make them remotely willing to fight. The anti-war culture of our society is so ingrained in everyone that if I did introduce conscription there would be mass riots, assassination attempts, and possibly even governmental paralysis. Most everyone will never consider fighting unless it was in the explicit defense of our country." Unato sighed, and he looked towards the ground. "I just want to keep the government running the way it should. I thought that your brother was a small price to pay. But that's not just it."

"What?" Cagalli asked.

"The Destroy is a weapon conceptualized to be something so terrible that it will end war, once and for all. If Kira, this 'Ultimate Coordinator', were to fly it...the war could be over in a matter of weeks. ZAFT would be defeated, and then there would be no more rivalry, and no more war. Giving up your brother may have shortened this war by months, even years. Certainly, ZAFT will be taking heavy casualities, but Orb will be safe, and so will the Earth. I think, again, your brother is a small price to pay by this logic."

For the first time, Cagalli's right hand, holding the silenced pistol, trembled slightly. And then Cagalli spoke.

"Realpolitik, huh?" She finally said.

"Yes. Now you see." Unato said.

"I can compromise my ideals. But I will never descend into realpolitik. Realpolitik is merely the desire to stay in power and nothing more. All calculation, no emotion, no personal feelings, no remorse."

She took a deep breath. "There is no honor, no love, no nothing inside you."

Unato's eyes widened softly. "Cagalli, wait-"

There as a loud pop. Blood erupted from Unato Sieran's forehead for a brief instant, and his body slumped forward on his stomach, dead before he hit the floor. No one moved. It was like everyone, and everything, had frozen in time except for Unato Sieran's collapsing body.

It was only when Unato's body laid completely motionless that Yuna finally sprung back to life, and he was close to blubbering now. "L-L-Look, please don't kill me! I'm sorry! I'll do whatever you say! Just don't kill me!"

"I told you not to beg for your life." Cagalli replied, her voice devoid of emotion.

Yuna's eyes widened to the point where they nearly fell from their sockets. "Oh shit!"

Another loud pop, and Yuna collapsed to the ground, falling backwards. Blood sprayed into the air, much of it landing on Cagalli and her clothes. Finally, Cagalli put the Taser down, and calmly switched on the safety of her pistol. She bent down and put the pistol in Yuna's right hand, making sure to get his fingerprints all over the gun, including the trigger.

Cagalli took a quivering, deep breath, and exhaled. "T-Take my radio, and call Hope. Tell her that the presidental office needs to be cleaned. Y-You will find that...that the communications are no longer jammed. I...I just switched it...off. Do it...do it now, A-Athrun."

Athrun walked over. "Cagalli, it's okay."

"N-No, it's not. It'll never be okay. It'll never be okay." Cagalli said as she fell to her knees and began sobbing violently into her hands. Athrun bent down and put his hands on her shoulders, and she wrapped her arms around him and buried her head in her chest as she wailed."Kira!" She cried. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry!"

_'I didn't make it in time. Now Cagalli has to live with this.'_ Athrun thought. He wished that he could have stopped this. There could have been a better way. There should have been a better way.

"Athrun!" Cagalli sobbed, and she looked into his eyes, tears pouring from her own. "Don't let me fall. Don't let me become like them. I'm all Orb has left. Don't let me fall."

"I won't." Athrun said softly.

Cagalli just began crying again, and Athrun let her rest on her shoulder. The call could wait for a few more minutes.

The office had been cleaned immediately. Eight days after Cagalli had killed both Unato and Yuna, they had been given their state funerals and buried in the ground. Cagalli had seemed to have turned off all of her emotions. It was like she couldn't bear to feel anything, lest she feel more pain.

Seeing Cagalli like this was honestly depressing. Athrun knew there was have been a better way to stop Unato and Yuna Sieran. But now they were both dead, and Cagalli had to live the rest of her life knowing she was their killer.

"You really think I'm going to fly this piece of shit!" Kira Yamato yelled, even as he gestured at the massive Destroy Gundam which stood before him in the hanger of the OMNI Enforcer Archangel-class warship Hades. The amethyst-eyed man was clearly pissed off.

"You will, unless you want your children to die." The captain answered. "I can give them both instant heart failure with a press of a button...unless you do as I say."

"You wouldn't do it." Kira said.

"Try me. You're deploying right now! You're needed at the Suez Canal. Your mission is to obliterate the ZAFT convoy trying to break through there. Complete your mission...and your children will survive until the next mission. Rinse and repeat until you are no longer needed. Now give me your answer."

They just wanted him to kill because he was the Ultimate Coordinator. They wanted him to kill until there was nothing left of his kind. That was the price he was going to have to pay in order to protect his children. Two lives compared to thousands of people he did not know. Potentially millions...potentially even the entire ZAFT population.

Kira's hands trembled at the controls. The Operation System was actually operable for him right now, he could actually use it. And now he was the pilot of a monster. He was going to become a monster. The monster in his nightmares.

The Gundam he had always flown never appeared so imposing, so demonic, so evil, like this behemoth. Tears streamed down Kira's face. It seemed he had two choices, but the truth was he didn't have any choice at all. He made the only decision he could make.

On the warship Katsuragi, one of the bridge lieutenants, who was normally on break at this time, charged onto the bridge. "Captain Katsuragi! Captian Zala! The ZAFT supply convoy is under attack!"

"What? By who?" Misato asked.

"I have video here. Let me bring it up." The lieutenant replied, and a moment later, the main screen came to life and everyone on the bridge saw a monster.

"What in God's name is that thing?" Misato asked, speaking the question on everyone's mind.

"I don't know!" The lieutenant shouted. "It's a massacre! Look at it!"

Neon green beams shot up at every conceivable angle, and Athrun could see little pyres erupt from the ocean.

"How can that thing even fly?" Misato asked.

"I just want to know what that thing is. Is it a new Gundam? Or what?"

Meyrin had her own thoughts, and she quickly turned and began to run off the bridge.

Athrun grabbed her arm. "Ensign Hawke! You're not going out there!"

"That thing is going to kill everyone out there!" Meyrin yelled.

"And it will kill you too, if you try to fight it!" Athrun instantly replied.

Misato spoke the honest truth again. "Fight it? More like being in front of a firing squad blindfolded. I say we stay out of this. I assume that's an OMNI Enforcer machine."

"You assume?" Athrun asked.

"Who else could be annihilating ZAFT? Orb isn't operating in this theater right now."

"You're right." Athrun said. He let go of Meyrin's arm, and Meyrin made a growling noise.

"You don't understand." Meyrin replied. "That thing isn't a war machine. It's flying genocide."

"As long as we don't get in its way; I don't really care!" Misato said, her voice raised.

"That's a heartless thing to say!" Meyrin cried.

"And that's our only option!" Misato roared. "You really want us to intervene? With all of those guns, we could easily become targeted along with the ZAFT forces!"

The lieutenant interrupted everyone again. "My sensors indicate a significant number of the ZAFT vessels are scattering in random directions. Most of them are coming right towards us. Some are sending us digital images of a white flag."

"Then take them into custody, and tell the crew to treat the ZAFT soldiers and pilots humanely." Misato said firmly. "Those who don't surrender, we shoot at until they do."

"Yes, ma'am!"

Athrun watched as the video continued to play. Even though it was broad daylight, the monstrous machine was so vast that it took up the entire background of the video, almost as if the scene was playing out at night.

One of the senior officers came on the communicatons line, and Hope looked up at the screen. "It's been confirmed. Athens has been...wiped out. The Destroy Gundam is now advancing across the Aegean Sea, attacking any military unit crossing its path. It does not matter whether it is from the Earth Alliance, Celestial Being or ZAFT. It just kills everything that gets in its way."

"I see." Hope sighed. "Tell all of our forces to hunker down and remain out of sight if at all possible. Let the Earth Alliance stop their own mistake. Maybe we'll even be able use this as a distraction to sneak our remaining forces out of the Aegean Sea and towards South America. The Alliance navy will likely be devastated even if they do shoot the Destroy down."

Suddenly, the Destroy was hit. Multiple beam shots struck the hand, and it exploded. The Destroy staggered, lurched to its left, and fired wildly in every direction. By the sound of the engines, it sounded like mobile suits.

"Good shot, Karen! Everyone, keep Formation Echo. Stay loose and keep shooting!" Athrun Zala yelled.

Karen Walsh and Athrun Zala had managed to remove the Destroy's right hand in two shots, and now every mobile suit in Athrun's squadron had opened fire upon the Destroy. The Destroy staggered and turned towards the Orb squadron, and Athrun's eyes widened.

"Evasive manuevers!" Athrun shouted. He moved away, and his squadron attempted to scatter. But there was too much firepower. Athrun had been able to move out of the way, but half of his Murasame group had gotten hit, and five of the six were kill shots. The sixth merely lost all of its right leg and a small portion of the torso.

_'Even the Murasame isn't fast enough to get out of the way.'_ Athrun thought, before once more speaking to his wingmate. "Karen, you still with me?"

"Yes, sir."

"Clear out of the area. Create a perimeter around here. No one passes. Leave this to myself and Lacus." Athrun said.

"Understood, sir." Karen answered as the Murasames blasted away, leaving just the Infinite Justice and the Chimera against the hulking Destroy.

_'All right, we did some damage. That'll hopefully wake Kira up. He has to know he's not invincible anymore.'_ Athrun thought to himself, before once again speaking through the communications channel. "Lacus, get on the line, talk to Kira. We don't have a lot of time. Karen won't be able to keep people away for long."

"Yes." Lacus said. She immediately got on the open channel. "Kira? Can you hear me? Kira, this is Lacus. Please answer me." For a long moment, only silence came back.

"Kira, I know you can hear me. It's Lacus. Athrun's here too. We're here to help you Kira."

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, a soft voice answered. "No one can help me."

_'That's Kira.'_ Athrun thought. Up to that point, Athrun had allowed himself to have one tiny hope that it wasn't Kira inside the cockpit, that it was merely an illusion, that it had not happened...and it was gone.

"Don't say that, Kira. This isn't like you. You're not like this." Lacus replied.

"I said no one can help me!" Kira roared.

The Destroy fired at the Infinite Justice with its mouth cannon, not at the Chimera. Athrun saw the shots coming and barely managed to get out of the way.

_'Okay, he's willing to shoot at me, but not Lacus. Am I supposed to think that's a good thing?'_ Athrun thought for a moment. _'Well, he could have shot at Lacus instead. That would've been much worse.'_

"Kira, please don't do that." Lacus begged.

"Shut up, Lacus." Kira snarled.

"Kira, please stop!" Lacus sobbed. "I'm trying to help you! You don't have to do this!"

"All you do is lie to me!"

"I've never lied to you, Kira!"

"All you've ever told me are lies!"

"I know you can get better, Kira! I know it! Kira, please-"

"Stay away from me."

"Kira-" Lacus started.

"Stay away!" Kira screamed as he fired at Lacus.

Athrun did the only thing he could do to save Lacus. Since he had been carrying the METEOR, he ejected it and sent it straight in front of the Chimera, where the METEOR absorbed all of the shots before exploding. The Chimera backed away, and Athrun could tell Lacus was stunned just by the jerky way her mobile suit was moving.

"He shot at me." Lacus whimpered in disbelief.

"I know, Lacus." Athrun said.

"He shot at me."

"Lacus, calm-"

"He shot at me. He-he shot at me."

_'Damn it.'_ Athrun thought. _'I lost my best offensive weapon, got five pilots killed, and now Lacus is shutting down.'_

Athrun turned towards the Destroy and sighed. "I guess that I don't have much of a choice, do I?" He never thought that he would ever have to fight Kira again. He thought it had been over with thousands of years ago. The last thing he wanted was to kill his best friend.

After fighting so hard with him for the past few millenia. After everything they had gone through. This was the end result?

Kira came on the line. "Athrun. I know you're listening. Go away. Stop trying to save me. I'm not worth it. I've never been worth it."

Athrun took a breath. "Kira, you don't understand."

"I do understand. All you people ever do is tell me lies to make me feel better. But I've finally seen through all of the lies. Everyone just lies. No one is real anymore. It's all fake. False. Nothing exists because no one is real, just lies. I'm going to break it, Athrun. I'm going to obliterate this false existence.

_'Did they drug Kira up?'_ Athrun thought. He shook off the thought. _'No, something must have happened. Something drove him over the edge.'_

Lacus spoke again, clearly struggling to form words. Her sobs were garbling her voice. "Kira...please, I've always loved you...just let me help. Kira, I'll help you."

"Stop lying to me!" Kira shouted, and his weapons powered up. Athrun got ready to shoot, this time for real. He turned on the HiMAT targeting system, and locked on to as many weapons as he could, but he still couldn't lock onto them all.

_'Even the best targeting system on the planet can't fully stop this machine.'_ Athrun thought in amazement.

But Kira did not fire, instead, his weapons powered back down.

"Everything is fake. It's not real. I'm not really killing anybody, am I? This is just some sick simulation. I'm running a test. They're testing me. I'm going to wake up someday and it'll be in an entirely different world." Kira ranted. "Nobody's real, so it doesn't matter if I kill everyone. Maybe if I kill everyone I'll finally wake up."

"I'm real!" Lacus wailed. "Kira, do you think every night we spent together isn't real? You can't seriously believe that!"

"Then prove it to me! Kill me!" Kira shrieked.

"I won't kill you, Kira!" Lacus drew a shaky breath. "If I kill you, it means I've failed you. I can't...I can't accept that."

Kira just laughed. "That's what I expected! You want me to believe your love crap! You're just a masochist or something, aren't you? You just like to get hurt!"

"Kira, no-" Lacus sobbed.

"Just admit it!" Kira laughed. "I've hurt you way too much for you to stay! But you stay anyway! You have to be a masochist!"

Athrun decided it was time to interject. "Or maybe she really loves you, Kira. And she stays by you because she loves you."

"Everyone tells me they love me. Everyone tells me they'll be there for me. Nobody's ever there. Nobody wants me. They just lie and pretend to love me when they just want to use me. Including the both of you! Lacus, you don't want me to get better, you just want me to keep hurting you! And I know you want me to fly the Divinity again, Athrun! You would have me fight forever!"

_'Does he even believe what he's saying? Or is he just begging us to kill him in some subtle way?'_ Athrun thought, although he couldn't tell either way.

Kira laughed again. "Well, how about this, Lacus? I get to hurt you one more time!"

_'Damn it!'_ Athrun thought as he raised his beam rifle. Even without visual, Athrun could visualize the stunned, tearful expression on Lacus' face. "Kira, wait-"

Kira fired. Athrun fired an instant later.

Two of Kira's shots blasted off the Chimera's legs, while a third slammed into the its side, sending it spiraling away. Lacus screamed in terror as she lost control and toppled towards a nearby island. She crashed into a group of trees, and other than some smoke there was no sign of her.

Athrun's shots uselessly slammed into the Destroy's positron reflector shields. Kira had activated them just in time to allow only one of the backpack cannons to be blasted out of existence. Everything else, frustratingly, stayed intact.

"Lacus? Lacus, can you hear me? Lacus!" Athrun shouted.

Kira made some odd noises, like he was laughing and crying at the same time. "How'd that feel, Lacus? That felt good, didn't it? Come on, answer me!"

Lacus wasn't answering. Images shot through Athrun's head, of her body being twisted or impaled or burned or far worse. Athrun violently shook his head and blocked them out. He had to believe she was okay. She had to be. That hadn't been a kill shot.

That meant that even if she needed medical attention, if Athrun finished Kira off fast enough, he'd be able to help her in time. Athrun was stunned at that realization. He was really going to have to do it. He was going to kill Kira. In order to protect Lacus, and everyone else, he was going to have to kill his best friend. He had never wanted to believe it could come to this. Murdering his best friend.

Did he want to believe that Kira was too far gone to save? He could not plead to Kira the way Lacus could. What could have happened to do this to Kira? He's not making sense even by insanity standards.

"Kira, last chance." Athrun warned. "You can still stop."

"There's no stopping me now, Athrun. I shot Lacus down. Even if she did love me she has to hate me now. There's no one for me."

"Are you sure about the choice you are making?" Athrun sighed.

"I want the loneliness. I want the pain. I want the suffering." Kira laughed. "I want to die in the most painful way possible, Athrun. Give it to me."

"You accuse Lacus of being a masochist, but it seems that you are the real masochist, Kira." Athrun said.

Kira fired at Athrun wildly, and it was all Athrun could do to dodge it all. "About time you figured it out! I just wanted Lacus to feel what I feel! I want her to be in pain just like me! I want her to hate me!"

"Why?" Athrun asked. "Why do you want this?"

Kira just laughed through obvious tears. "I'm a war criminal, Athrun. No matter what I do or where I go, I'll be put in front of a tribunal and then in front of a firing squad. I'm dead no matter what I do. So, I'm going to give this world a service. I want everyone to know exactly how I feel. There's no going back for me, and I certianly don't deserve the love of anyone else. There's no way Lacus will love me now, and I want it that way! Unless, of course, she really has become a masochist."

Athrun readied the HiMAT system. He was going to fire everything he had, and while the Destroy was staggering he would kill Kira by skewering him in the cockpit with the twin beam sabers. It would be an instant death. Cagalli would never forgive him for doing this, but Athrun knew there was no reasoning left in Kira.

"I'm sorry." Athrun saw the seed. "You've given me no choice."

But before the seed could shatter, Athrun heard a familiar voice that surprised him so much he lost sight of the seed.

"Stop your whining already, Kira!" A familiar voice called.

Athrun's radar beeped, and he was surprised to see a new contact charge towards him and then by him, before finally settling into a position in front of him.

It was a golden mobile suit; the ORB-01 Akatsuki Gundam. The Akatsuki's pilot spoke again. "You want someone to feel your pain, Kira? Try me. Tell me how much you feel."

_'It can't be.'_ Athrun thought. _'How could she even get here so fast?'_

But the voice was unmistakable. No one could impersonate the pilot's husky yet youthful voice. The Akatsuki's pilot was none other than Cagalli Yula Athha.


	104. False Peace

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 104**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

Kira began screaming over the communications line. "Coming to kill me, Cagalli? What a wonderful, caring sister! You shunt me aside until I become a problem, and then, when I'm all nice and quiet you can just pretend I don't exist!"

There was a pause, but finally Kira spoke again. "How does it feel, Cagalli?"

_'I need to find a way to cripple the Destroy Gundam.'_ Cagalli thought, even as she dodged the hail of firepower from the mamoth Gundam. _'If I take out the reactor it'll kill all of us, and taking out the high-energy beam cannons are too much of a risk. I must cripple it in such a way that I can strike a non-lethal finishing blow.'_

The fighting had moved to shallow waters just off the coast of an island, the same island where Lacus Clyne had been shot down. That made it even more imperative that Cagalli didn't get the area all irradiated.

"Are you going to put me out of my misery?" Kira roared. "Is that what you think you're doing?"

"I'm the one who's in misery right now, and you don't see me whining about it." Cagalli calmly replied, she was going to save her crying for later.

"I hate you!" Kira shouted. "You don't deserve what you have! You put me in this thing! You ignored me and abandoned me!"

_'Like it's all about you.'_ Cagalli thought.

"I'll kill you!" The Destroy let loose several volleys as Cagalli prepared her pass, and the Akatsuki took several hits as it flew overhead.

"Why won't you just die?" Kira screamed.

"Because I'm not going to give up on you." Cagalli said, she was now directly above the Destroy Gundam. The Owashi sky pack suddenly dropped the Akatsuki, and Cagalli aimed her anti-ship sword in a downward arc, slashing right between the main Destroy unit and the backpack unit attached to it.

"I've won, Kira." Cagalli smirked.

Kira screamed in panic and fired futility. Cagalli's blade struck right where she wanted it to be, and she felt the beam weapon steadily slice through the middle connections, slowly but steadily removing the Destroy's main power source and the majority of its weapons in one blow.

Kira was screaming, and Cagalli could hear sparks shooting off in his cockpit. _'I'm so sorry, Kira. But this is for your own good.'_ Cagalli thought as the backpack was finally severed and splashed into the shallow water. The Destroy managed a few staggering steps forward before turning around.

"It figures that he'd have some kind of secondary power source." Cagalli sighed, taking cover behind her physical shield.

"Damn you!" Kira roared, and both of the Destroy's hands opened up to reveal many miniature beam guns.

Cagalli prepared her anti-ship sword again. "I'll cut off both of the legs." She said over a private channel. "He has no propulsion system anymore and without its legs the Destroy can't stand up."

Kira was breathing heavily. "Why? Why, why, why, why, why?"

"Because I care." Cagalli said softly, even as she charged.

Kira screamed again as he fired the trio of high-energy beam cannons at Cagalli, but the Akatsuki once again absorbed the blasts as she charged forward.

A warning alarm went off, signifying that the reflection system was at ninety percent. But it didn't matter anymore. Nothing Kira could do now would stop the inevitable.

As Cagalli moved to strike, Kira's screams became nothing more than garbled gibberish, she couldn't understand a word. But due to her telepathic link with Kira, she knew exactly what it meant. "I hate you and I want you to die."

Cagalli struck, and her sword cleaved off the Destroy's right leg first. She kept the Akatsuki moving, knowing that if she stopped the Destroy would crash right on top of her. So she kept moving until she sliced off the left leg as well, and let the Destroy crash face up into the shallow water at the beachhead.

Kira's gibberish continued, screaming incessantly as the trio of chest cannons, along with the cannon positioned in the Destroy's head fired in futility over and over. Cagalli just waited, and the gibberish steadily turned into sobs and wails.

Athrun came on. "You'd think we committed bloody murder."

"We did. We sold this damned thing to the Earth Alliance." Cagalli said softly. She turned the Akatsuki around, and the Owashi pack once again hooked up to the Akatsuki.

After one final shot into the air from the mouth cannon, the Destroy fell silent, as did Kira. The radio had shut off.

The Akatsuki slowly walked over to the fallen Destroy. Kira was still silent. The behemoth looked little more than wreckage now, being taken apart piece by piece until there was nothing left. Which was how Cagalli wanted it.

_'I don't think I killed Kira, but he's not giving me a sign.'_ Cagalli thought. _'He may have shut down mentally. Maybe he's traumatized. He might even be mute.'_

Tears appeared in her eyes. _'My poor brother. I should be in his position. I'm the one who committed the wrong.'_ She silently sobbed. _'He's nothing more than a pawn used by the Earth Alliance who went insane.'_

The shimmering form of the Akatsuki stopped right beside the Destroy, and Cagalli quickly prepared to exit the cockpit.

_'You've been in the dark for so long, Kira.'_ Cagalli mused. _'I think it's time that you saw some light.'_

It then occured to Cagalli just how sunny the day was, and a small smile crossed her face despite her tears.

_'It's a beautiful day, Kira.'_ She smiled. _'And I want you to see it.'_

Cagalli opened the Akatsuki's cockpit, and prepared for what she hoped was reconciliation, not confrontation, with her twin brother.

Kira Yamato sighed as he typed away at his laptop. Professor Kato had given him a lot of work do, and the guy who he was supposed to be working with on this had decided about thirty minutes ago to take a break and had yet to resume working.

After being captured by the OMNI Enforcers and forced to pilot the GFAS-X1 Destroy Gundam, Kira had finally decided to publicly step down as the leader of Celestial Being and move to one of the colonies on the dark side of the Moon, specifically the Heliopolis Colony, which was in actuality, wholey owned and controlled by the private armed organization. And although Kira had publicly stepped down as the leader of Celestial Being, he was, in reality, still in command of the private armed organization.

"You know, you could actually start working again." Kira said as he looked up from his work at the only other boy in the gazebo.

The other person, a Coordinator named Shinn Asuka, was currently playing his guitar. Shinn, like Kira, appeared to be only 18 years of age, when in fact, they were both well over 2,000 years old. Shinn had crimson eyes and short black hair. He was wearing blue jeans with a simple leather belt, a black t-shirt, and a gray unzipped hoodie. A pair of dog tags hung around his neck.

Along with Shinn and Kira, there were two girls in the gazebo, Asuka Langley Soryu and Lunamaria Hawke. Like the two boys, Asuka and Lunamaria both appeared to be only 18 years of age, when in fact, they were both more than 2,000 years old. Asuka was wearing a pair of black sweat pants and a blue polo shirt, while Luna was wearing a pair of faded jeans and a red t-shirt.

An instant later, a massive explosion suddenly erupted from the left block of the colony.

_'Time to go back to war.'_ Kira thought, a slight grin crossing his face.

"If we're under attack, we should probably go find a shelter." Shinn suggested, and his friends nodded in agreement.

"All of you! Get down here now!" The voice of Murrue Ramius ordered a few short moments later, as the four friends sprinted across a catwalk in the factory, on their way to the shelters.

"Doesn't look like we have much of a choice." Shinn said, already knowing what was meant to happen. "Now the question is, how are we going to get down there?"

"I've got an idea." Kira replied before he leapt over the railing and onto the middle-left mobile suit, the one that Murrue was on.

"I know I'm going to regret this." Shinn said, before jumping off the other side of the catwalk and onto the machine his aunt was on.

Luna scanned the area, and spotted her uncle on a suit next to the one Johanna was on, promptly jumping down from the catwalk onto that one.

Shinn landed on his target machine's left shoulder. A little sore but otherwise all right.

"What's going on here? Why is ZAFT attacking us?" He shouted as his aunt fired off rounds from a pistol at a ZAFT soldier.

"Long story! Basically, ZAFT wants the machines we've been building!" Johanna replied as she fired the last rounds in her handgun, killing the soldier.

"Isn't that a treaty violation?"

Johanna was about to reply when an explosion tore through a part of the warehouse. Flames quickly spread across the warehouse.

"Damn! This place isn't going to last much longer!" She said. "Get in the mobile suit! We need to get out of here!"

Shinn nodded. The whole warehouse was going up in flames. He quickly scrambled into the cockpit, followed by his aunt.

As Luna landed on the mobile suit her uncle was on, Nick got hit by a burst of fully automatic fire from a ZAFT soldier, though his return fire killed the soldier.

"Uncle Nick!" Luna cried, running over to him. Nick, blood running from his mouth as he lay dying on the machine, reached up and grabbed Luna's shoulder.

"Get...this machine out of here, Luna." He choked out through the blood. Tears ran down Luna's face. "Don't let ZAFT have it..." Nick's hand released Luna's shoulder, and his arm fell to the ground limp as his eyes closed.

Tears still running down her face, Luna did as she was told, and jumped into the mobile suit's cockpit.

On the machine Kira had landed on, he and a ZAFT red stared at each other in shock.

"Athrun?" Kira breathed. It was none other than his childhood friend, Athrun Zala. Kira knew, however, that it couldn't really be his long-time friend. Athrun Zala along with his wife Meyrin Hawke, were both on the recently commissioned Sovereign-class warship Carolina. And the Carolina was currently docked at the Aprilius One colony.

"Kira?" Athrun asked, incredulous. Athrun's stance slacked, and Kira stood up, putting his eye level almost even with the blue-haired soldier across from him. The brunette woman lifted her gun, aiming it at Athrun, who jumped back, evading the two haphazard shots. The woman stood up and knocked Kira into the cockpit of the mobile suit before then dropping in herself.

Asuka deftly evaded the knife as it was swung through the air. The ZAFT red may have been a professional soldier, despite his young age, but Asuka was a black belt in a very rare form of martial arts. The redhead delivered a vicious kick to the soldier's hand, knocking the knife into the air, and then delivered a punch to his gut, sending him tumbling backwards away from the machine.

"We have to get out of here now! Forget about the remaining machines!" Another soldier shouted. The ZAFT red, Erik, stood up, threw a glare her way, and rushed back. Ignoring him, Asuka ran to her mother...who, to her horror, was covered in her own blood.

"Mom!" Asuka cried, running to the woman's side. Kyoko looked up at her and smiled weakly.

"Asuka." She choked. "Get it out of here...don't let anyone else have Savior...I made it...for you..." Kyoko hacked up blood.

"Mom, don't talk, you'll be okay." Asuka said desperately through the tears on her face and in her voice. Kyoko simply smiled, a little stronger.

"I'm fortunate...to have been your mother." She said. "Asuka...I love yo..." Kyoko's voice trailed off, and Asuka felt the body of her mother go limp.

"Argh!" Asuka screamed. Explosions tore through the factory, and the redhead kissed her mother before running to the cockpit of the mobile suit.

A massive explosion tore through the warehouse as the GAT-X102 Duel, the GAT-X103 Buster, the GAT-X104 Eclipse, the GAT-X105 Strike, the GAT-X207 Blitz, the GAT-X302 Savior, the GAT-X303 Aegis, and the GAT-X308 Twilight broke through their cradles and stood up

As the flames consumed the warehouse, eight mobile suits shot out from the ruined building. Their movements were erratic, at best. Three of them were slow and shaky, like trainees piloting a mobile suit for the first time were operating the machines. Five of them landed fairly smoothly, though they effectively stood their ground after doing so.

The last one landed, seemingly smooth...then tumbled off-balance and collapsed to the ground.

"What the hell?" Luna muttered, her voice still cracking slightly from the death of her uncle. She glanced over the readouts and realized that several of the control components of the mobile suit, the Twilight, were incomplete, and the battery was extremely low capacity as well.

The Aegis, Blitz, Buster, and Duel quickly pulled away from the other four prototype machines as a pair of GINNs landed nearby.

Shinn watched his aunt struggle to operate the mobile suit, the GAT-X104 Eclipse. Though he knew they were still in danger, he couldn't help but feel concerned about Kira, Luna and the others.

"Damn. They still haven't perfected the OS yet. How did they ever expect this thing to be combat ready with this OS in this shape?" Johanna said in frustration.

Shinn couldn't help but agree with her. The operating system was clearly of an inferior design. Which was very bad for them, if those GINNs decided to attack.

Asuka was completely silent as she rapidly typed away at the keyboard in the cockpit of her commandeered mobile suit, the GAT-X302 Savior. She'd seen the mess the OS was in, and had immediately begun rewriting it. Four of the eight machines, specifically GAT-X102 Duel, the GAT-X103 Buster, the GAT-X207 Blitz, and the GAT-X303 Aegis, were occupied by ZAFT soldiers, and her typing had become even more frantic when she saw two GINNs land nearby.

As the Aegis, Blitz, Buster and Duel began to retreat, the two GINNs began moving to attack the five stumbling machines.

Suddenly, a woman's voice came over the radio, one which everyone recognized as that of Murrue Ramius. "Pilot of the Savior, identify yourself."

"This is Johanna Asuka of Morgenroete." Came the reply. "Lieutenant Ramius, is that you?"

"Yes." Murrue answered. "It's good to see that you managed to survive and get that machine out of there."

"Is Kira Yamato with you?" She asked.

"Yes, he's here." Murrue answered.

Asuka sighed in relief, knowing that Kira was safe.

"Pilot of the Twilight, identity yourself." Murrue's voice spoke again.

"Um...this is Lunamaria Hawke." The voice of Shinn's wife answered. Feigning shock, Asuka stopped typing for a moment. "I'm Johanna Asuka's daughter-in-law."

"What?" Johanna exclaimed. "Luna, what are you doing in there? Where's Nick?"

What sounded like a choked sob was the first reply, and Shinn felt his heart freeze.

"He's...dead." Came the choked reply. Shocked, Johanna's control on the mobile suit slackened, and the GINN attacking them landed a hit near the foot of the machine, sending it tumbling off-balance.

"Damn it." Murrue cursed.

"No." Johanna whispered. She blinked back tears, and shook her head, getting herself back under control. "Listen to me Lieutenant Ramius, the OS still isn't ready for a Natural like you or myself to pilot. Allow Kira to pilot the machine."

"What?" Murrue asked, feigning disbelief.

"Kira's a Coordinator, just like my daughter-in-law." Johanna said, quickly regaining control of her emotions. "They should be able to better handle these machines than we can at the moment."

"I can not allow a civilian to pilot a top secret machine." Murrue countered.

_'Come on, Murrue.'_ Kira finally interrupted, using his telepthy. _'We are both well aware of how this scenerio is going to play out.'_

_'We'll see about that, Kira.'_ Murrue grinned, even as her hands flew over the keyboard. A few seconds later, the Strike's eyes flashed with an omnious yellow light, even as the eyes of the Eclipse, Savior, and Twilight lit up green, red, and blue, respectively.

Suddenly, the two GINNs holstered their rifles, pulled out their swords and started running towards the Strike and Eclipse.

Murrue quickly pushed a button on the console, activating the Strike's PS armor. The machine's dull gray body turned white, blue, and red. One of the GINNs raised its sword over its head. She barely managed to raise the shield on the Strike's left arm to block the sword strike and push the GINN onto its back.

The Eclipse and Twilight had both activated their PS armor, turning the Twilight a brilliant red, and the Eclipse white, blue, and red. Activating her own PS armor, Asuka idly noted the readouts indicating her machine had turned red, silver, and black in the same patterns as the Eclipse and Strike.

As the GINN approached, Shinn finished his first set of calibrations, and fired the head vulcans at the GINN, causing it to stumble as it stabbed forward. Shinn deftly evaded, and punched the GINN in the face, before then using his left hand to free and ignite a beam saber from his machine's right hip. The crimson-eyed man smirked slightly as he swund the glowing red energy blade, severing the GINN's head with a single slash.

Murrue raised the Strike's right arm and opened the palm, revealing a beam cannon, and fired. A searing green energy blast streaked towards the GINN.

Unfortunately, the cannon's calibration was off. The first shot missed entirely, while the second shot severed the GINN's right arm at the elbow. The GINN staggered back a few steps, to be quickly joined by its comrade, and then the two machines took off into the air, quickly fleeing the Heliopolis Colony.

"Oh no you don't!" Kira roared, as the angelic form of the CB-X60D Divinity Gundam suddenly appeared in the sky, directly in front of the retreating GINNs. Murrue watched as Kira's body dissolved into thin air, and she quickly realized that he had probably teleported himself over to the Divinity's cockpit. Her suspicions were confirmed as the Divinity's eyes lit up with a bright purple light.

"You assholes think that you can attack a neutral colony and get away with it?" Kira's voice snarled from within the Divinity's cockpit. The angel-winged mobile suit blazed with a blood red light, ignited the pure white beam saber on its left wrist and sped towards the pair of GINNs, glowing afterimages trailing behind it.

Kira smirked as his beam saber cleaved the GINN in half at the waist. Just before it exploded, the GINN fired off all of its missiles. The missiles flew wildly into the central shaft of Heliopolis. The shaft broke in two, causing Heliopolis to start collapsing all around them. As the colony began to break aprt, the crimson form of the Aegis Gundam seemed to drop in from nowhere and clash blades with the Divinity Gundam.

"No..." Shinn said as he watched his home for more than a year crumble into dust. Suddenly, the effects of the massive vacuum that was being created violently pulled on the Eclipse. He struggled to control his mobile suit, but, even with the wings of light, it was pointless. There was nothing he could do but sit back and pray that he would survive.

"Athrun? Athrun Zala?" Kira asked in disbelief. "Why...Why are you here?"

"You should talk!" Athrun shot back. "What are you going in that thing?"

Before Kira could answer, parts of Heliopolis began to fall all around them. Kira looked around in horror. Heliopolis was tearing itself apart. A few seconds later, both Kira and Athrun found themselves being violently pulled outside the colony.

Kira screamed as he was pulled into space, and he heard Athrun shout out his name before the Aegis was pulled out in a completely different direction.

Nicol, Dearka and Yzak watched in muted horror from the pilot lounge onboard the Nazca-class warship Vesalius as the Heliopolis Colony broke apart.

"Heliopolis..." Nicol said weakly.

"Jeez...How the hell did Athrun and the others screw up so badly?" Dearka asked.

"The council's gonna have Commander Le Creuset's head for this." Yzak said solemnly. "There's no way he can get out of something like this without some form of punishment. Using D-Type Equipment inside a civilian colony. What the hell was he thinking?"

Meanwhile, the Celestial Being warship Carolina sped away from the Aprilius One colony, the sleek vessel quickly making its way towards the Heliopolis Colony.

The Carolina, as with all of Celestial Being's Sovereign-class warships, was quite large, with a length of 685 meters, a height of 88 meters, a beam of 224 meters, and a total of 24 decks.

The basic design of the Sovereign-class warship consisted of two hull sections; an elliptical saucer-shaped primary hull and a secondary hull, which was attached to a pair of symmetrical nacelles running parallel to the main hull and contained various propulsion systems. The Sovereign-class had a mass of 3,255,000 metric tons and a cargo capacity of 60,000 metric tons. Under standard operation conditions, the ship could accommodate 885 people; consisting of 130 officers and 725 enlisted crew members. In extreme circumstances, however, the ship had an evacuation limit of 2,500 people.

The bridge, sub-light engines, hanger bay, lifeboats, six phaser arrays and twenty beam cannons were all located on the dorsal surface of the saucer section while an additional fifteen beam cannons, six phaser arrays, lifeboats, and twin torpedo launchers occupied the ventral side. The engineering section featured the main navigational deflector, docking bays for ten METEOR units, various propulsion systems, half a dozen power sources, a pair of phaser arrays, ten beam cannons, and a pair of torpedo launchers. The ship was armed with multiple new weapons, including energy weapons known as phasers, and two new types of projectile weapon known as photon and quantum torpedoes.

Meanwhile, a fierce battle raged at the debris field which had formerly been the Helioplis colony. As the stolen Gundams launched from the Nazca-class warship Vesalius, it quickly became apparent that the Celestial Being mobile suit Divinity, was among the opposing forces.

From the cockpit of the Duel, Yzak watched in amazment as everytime the Divinity shot off a volley from its weapons, it always managed to hit an arm or leg, to which point, one of the GINN pilots remarked. "What the hell? How the hell can he _always_ hit us, it's like theres some cheap God allowing him to have constant God-mode on!" Also because of this constant stream of fire from the Divinity, the ZAFT mobile suit forces were quickly damaged to the point of temporary disrepair for some time. Once all of the mobile suits had been disabled, the angelic machine turned its attention to the Vesalius. A white bolt spilt the air in front of Kira as he unleashed all 36 of his DRAGOON units, the remote weapons spiraling elegantly through the blackness and spearing the engines of the Nazca-class warship with searing green energy blasts, quickly disabling the ZAFT vessel.

Even as the battle at the now destroyed Helioplis colony came to a close, a pair of Alliance battleships spotted a large group of GuAIZ mobile suits near the air space of Jachin Due. The two Alliance warships were quick to begin launching their Strike Daggers.

"Hey, you guys hear about that new mobile suit that has started attacking both sides, seemingly at random?" The pilot of the lead GuAIZ asked his wingmates.

"Yeah!" One of the others answered. "Rumors say that it's a stolen ZAFT machine, it attacks huge squads of mobile suits from out of nowhere, completely disables or destroys them all in like, two minutes, and then dissappears in a large flash of light. They're calling it the Space Demon."

"Space Demon?" Another pilot scoffed. "Why not just, The Demon?"

"I dunn-what was that?" The pilot of the lead GuAIZ began, only to stop when his sensors blared. "My senors just blared a warning but there's nothing there!"

From above, shooting straight down from the abyss of space, a golden mobile suit suddenly fazed into view. The mobile suit was holding a glowing white beam sword in its left hand and a huge rifle in the right, its glowing golden eyes with blood red centers, murdously coming at them.

"The Demon!" One of the pilots screamed. "Its The Demon!"

"Fire, fire, take it out!" The leader yelled.

"It's moving too fast, it keeps dodging my shots!"

Two quick slices and the pair of GuAIZs exploded in a ball of light. The Akatsuki Gundam landed fast and crouched with its right arm stretched foward, and its left behind it, the fire of the explosion causing it to look like a devil from the deepest pits of hell. The explosion drew the attention of another pair of GuAIZs who started to fire, but when the bullets hit, it was only the ground that was their target. The Akatsuki had pitched foward at blinding speed, raced around the new threats and diced them before they knew what happened. A pair of high mobility GINNs rounded a corner, but before they could fire, one of them exploded. From up above the Chimera Gundam crouched on an overhanging ledge, firing off a pair of rail guns mounted on its hips, picking off one mobile suit at a time.

The stolen GN-X666D Divine Legend Gundam was sweeping the battlefield, deploying its DRAGOON units on every mobile suit around, even its ZAFT allies. They were nothing to the pilot of the grey mobile suit, only more cows for the slaughter. Death was his ultimate goal. He hefted his beam rifle, and shot off a round, the blast peircing the back of a Strike Dagger. His name was Rau Le Creuset, and his mobile suit would be the last thing that these foolish pilots would ever see. He turned and saw a trio of mobile suits attacking a squad of GINNs and CGUEs, and with a flash of exhaust, he took off towards them.

Back on Earth, in South America, a group of Dark Dagger L's emerged from the tree line. They carried Dopplehorn and Jet striker packs at the ready. They came face to face with their target. A group of Celestial Being ZAKUs with Launcher and Sword packs lined the botton of the ridge. The startled ZAKUs raised their rifles and cannons. The beams ripped over the field. The Daggers merely stepped aside, as the shots tore past them, destroying entire sections of the forest.

The ZAKUs quickly drew their weapons. The Daggers did the same, but to their surprise, a few of the Daggers exploded suddenly. Then three more, until only one Dagger was left. Shocked and confused, the pilot dropped his weapons and raised his machine's hands in surrender. From above the ZAKUs a glimmer was seen. The grass in front of the Dagger started to sway, as if a powerful wind was being created there. From nothingness a lone, angel-winged DINN appeared in front of the ZAKUs, its wings were spread, and the helmet still covered its face, but it was indeed a DINN. The DINN raised its shotgun at the remaining Dagger and fired off a round. The Dagger pilot was too slow to respond and exploded. The ZAKUs high-fived, and the DINN fully emerged from its flight mode. Seeing its mission accomplished it saluted the ZAKUs and flew off.


	105. Unique Abilities

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 105**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

**Warning:** This chapter contains an extreme lemon, and is not suitable for anyone under the age of 18.

* * *

"Come on, move!" Mayu Asuka growled within the cockpit of her Destiny Impulse Gundam as it stood on the shores of the Hudson River, even as dozens of beam blasts slammed into her machine, only to be harmlessly reflected by the MCPS armor.

"Mayu, are you ok?" Hope Yamato asked as her Destiny Gundam landed beside Mayu's motionless Impulse Gundam.

"I'm fine." Mayu answered. "Except for the fact that the Impulse isn't moving."

"Well, I can't leave you here." Hope replied. "Mayu, lengthen your hair."

"I don't really think now is the time or the place to fulfill that particular desire, Hope." Mayu sighed.

"I gave you a direct order!" Hope yelled, her tone of voice completely serious. "Lengthen your hair!" With a sigh, Mayu did as she was told, quickly lengthening her soft brunette tresses until they filled half the cockpit. "Now, open the access panel directly behind the pilot seat and feed your hair into it." Mayu quickly opened the access panel, and she instantly noticed a gentle suction eminating from the now open panel, but she ignored it as she followed her orders, allowing her silken locks to be drawn into the small opening. As Mayu carried out her orders, Hope kept her covered. "Once the entire length of your hair has been drawn into the access panel, lengthen it further."

"Why are you having me do this, Hope?" Mayu asked when she was once again sitting down in the pilot seat, even as she continued to follow the orders which Hope had given her.

"That beautiful hair of yours is going to be the mobile suit equivalent of the human body's muscular system." Hope smiled as she severed the head of a charging Slaughter Dagger with her beam saber.

"If Kira was with us right now, I imagine that he would be too distracted to fight." Mayu giggled as the Destiny Impulse slowly began to move, the pilot testing the new method of control for a few seconds, before finally freeing the anti-ship sword from behind the machine's right wing.

"Probably." Hope replied as the Destiny Impulse's wings suddenly snapped open, but in place of the twin glowing beam wings, Mayu's beautiful brunette tresses extended from within the gap between the wings. Hope blushed slightly as the Destiny Impulse sped forward and clashed with a Sword Dagger.

"Well, this is annoying." Mayu grumbled as a swath of her soft tresses suddenly emerged from the beam shield generator on the Destiny Impulse's right forearm, the silken locks instantly taking the shape of a shield and blocking a trio of searing green energy blasts before once more receding into the limb, even as the brunette locks occupying the the gap between the machine's wings receded. "It seems that everything is offline, with the only exceptions being the cameras, beam rifle and beam cannon."

"If that's the case, you'll have to put that gorgeous hair of yours through quite the workout." Hope said as the Destiny surged forward and kicked a charging Gunbarrel Dagger into the river.

"Wonderful." Mayu sarcastically replied, before effectively summing up her current situation. "So, since the Impulse has decided to stop working, I am being forced to use my hair as beam shields and the mobile suit equivalent of the human body's muscular system."

"I can understand why you might not be too thrilled with the prospect of using your hair to control the Impulse." Hope sympathized. "There are so many different fluids running through our mobile suits; antifreeze, water, oil, motor coolant, and transmission fluid, just to name a few"

"Ugh." Mayu cringed as she began to imagine her silken tresses moving within the frame of the Impulse Gundam, the soft strands of her hair being thoroughly soaked in, and even absorbing, the aforementioned fluids. She shook her head at the thought. "I shouldn't have launched without performing a thorough check of all the Impulse's systems. I could have prevented this. I could have..."

"Don't start that." Hope interrupted. "Don't feel guilty. Neither of us could have anticipated that the Impulse would decide to randomly shut down." She allowed a slight smile to cross her lips as she speared the head of a Windam on her beam saber. "Besides, you already know that I'll gladly wash that beautiful hair of yours, no matter how long it may be."

Beams of pink light suddenly seared by the two machines and several explosions blossomed around the source of the flashes. Mayu shoved the throttles forward and the Impulse hurtled forward. She could clearly see her opponents now, AEU Hellion mobile suits, all armed with beam rifles.

"Eliminating the targets." She announced, thumbing a button on the control sticks. From the Hellion pilot's view, he saw a white, red and blue mobile suit that looked like the first one his squad had intercepted, hurtling at him. He tried to lock on with his beam rifle but the mystery mobile suit pulled out a beam saber that ignited at both ends. With a deft swipe, Mayu cleaved the Hellion clean in two and then fired her beam vulcan guns at another. A third Hellion tried to get the drop on her, but in doing so he'd forgotten about his first opponent, and a massive anti-ship sword pierced the suit through the middle, causing it to detonate. The light from the explosion bathed the pair of mobile suits in a red-orange glow, highlighting the word GUNDAM stamped underneath the crest of the two machines.

"The announcement is finally being made." Hope said as she switched on of the auxillary monitors. It showed an image of a female newscaster, but almost immediately switched over to the image of none other than Kira Yamato, dressed in his ornate Celestial Being representative uniform.

"I will now deliver a message to the people of this world." He said. "We are Celestial Being. We are a private armed organization, which employ the mobile weapons known as; Gundams. The purpose for which we, Celestial Being, exist is to end all warfare in this universe. We do not seek to fight for personal gain. In order to eliminate the strife of war on people's hearts, we stand. As I am doing presently, we shall announce our intentions to all living things. Land, money, religion, energy, no matter what your justification may be, we will go to any battle and quell it. In this way we hope to reform the world. No matter if it is a country, organization or company. If they support war, they will come to know us all too well. We are Celestial Being. We exist for the purpose of ending war, as a private military."

"This'll get people's attention for sure." Hope chuckled.

"I still don't understand why Kira didn't make that announcement earlier." Mayu replied as the two Gundams ignited their thrusters and took to the air, heading back towards the Excalibur.

"You people seem all too happy to repeatedly insult us when our technology is centuries, if not millenia, more advanced than your own." Kira Yamato scowled as he sat on the Excalibur's bridge, glaring at the main screen, and by extention, the current the leaders of the world. "We have already brought everlasting peace to four other worlds, so don't act too surprised when you find out you're next." And with that, Kira signaled Lacus to cut the communications line.

A few seconds after the communications line had been closed, Lacus spoke up. "Kira, the Impulse and Destiny have both made it back safely." The pink-haired beauty paused for a moment, carefully studying a few of the monitors that displayed the interior of the mobile suit hangers, before finally continuing. "Although, the movements of the Impulse seem to be a little jerky."

"Mayu, are you alright?" Kira's voice asked through the Impulse's cockpit speakers, only to go silent.

"She's fine, Kira." Hope answered, after re-routing the communications line to the Destiny's cockpit. "You know that I'd never let anything happen to Mayu."

"I know that, Hope." Kira replied. "But, when I saw the Impulse moving the way it is, I became concerned."

"That's understandable." Hope smiled. "You don't need to worry, though, Mayu is perfectly fine." With those words, Hope closed the communications line. She then unfastened her seat harness, took the zipline down to the hanger floor and quickly went to the engineering gantry, which had automatically moved into place in front of the Impulse Gundam's still closed cockpit hatch.

When Hope reached the Impulse Gundam's cockpit hatch a moment later, instead of overriding the machine's systems and opening the hatch with her access code, she activated the intercom system and softly spoke. "Mayu, why haven't you come out of the Impulse yet?" The only answer that she received was the sound of Mayu quietly sobbing. "You aren't hurt, are you?" Hope asked, her voice suddenly filled with concern.

"N-no." Mayu answered after a few tense seconds. "I'm fine."

"If you're not hurt, why are you crying?" Hope asked.

"I-I can't shorten my hair anymore, Hope." Mayu answered with a quiet sob. "I can't come out of the cockpit while my hair is 25 miles in length." She paused for a few seconds, before finally adding. "And even if I could shorten my hair, I still wouldn't come out, because I have absolutely no desire to see what all the fluids running through the Impulse have done to my hair."

Hope let an annoyed sigh escape her lips before she replied. "Mayu, I'm ordering you to exit the Impulse Gundam's cockpit, now!" The tone of Hope's voice made it instantly clear that she was not in any mood to argue.

"No!" Mayu's voice cried from within the mobile suit. Hope growled as she quickly entered her own access code on the small keypad next to the Impulse Gundam's cockpit hatch. A few short seconds later, the cockpit hatch slowly opened to reveal Mayu staring at Hope in complete shock. Mayu had clearly not expected Hope to open the Impluse Gundam's cockpit hatch while her hair was still trapped within the machine's frame.

"Exit the cockpit." Hope calmly repeated. After five seconds had passed and Mayu still hadn't moved, Hope reached into the cockpit, grabbed Mayu's right wrist and yanked her to her feet. Mayu could only continue to stare at Hope as she quickly climbed into the cockpit of the Impulse Gundam and began to extract Mayu's silken brunette tresses from the machine's inner workings.

Nearby, Mayu's older brother, Shinn Asuka watched the unfolding situation in silent awe. After a long moment, Shinn finally climbed the engineering gantry and walked up to his sister, whom he noticed was silently crying.

Before Shinn could say anything, however, Hope's voice spoke up from within the cockpit of the Impulse. "Go away, Shinn." She ordered. "Just leave us alone." Shinn wasn't exactly sure why, but he was very quick to obey Hope's orders, climbing back down the engineering gantry to the hanger floor and leaving the hanger bay.

After nearly twenty minutes, Hope had finally freed every inch of Mayu's silken brunette tresses from within the frame of the Impulse Gundam. Hope smiled sweetly as she embraced Mayu and seductively whispered into her ear. "Why don't we go to the Inner Sanctum and wash this beautiful hair of your, Mayu?"

"H-Hope." Mayu sniffled and nodded in response.

"Although, since you didn't follow my orders and open the cockpit hatch right away, we're going to take the long way to the Inner Sanctum." Hope smirked.

"Y-you mean to tell me that we're going to walk all the way down to deck 4,220 before getting onto the elevator?" Mayu asked in disbelief.

"Just think of it as part of your punishment for not opening the cockpit hatch when I told you to." Hope replied, a sadistic smile on her face. "And, before you even ask, I will not shorten your hair either."

Mayu simply lowered her head and silently looked at the floor. When outside the Inner Sanctum, she didn't like it when her hair was more than ankle-length. Mayu loved to make her hair longer for the pleasure of the others within the harem, but that had only ever occured in the Inner Sanctum.

Hope was now forcing Mayu to leave her hair at a length of 25 miles as they walked to the Inner Sanctum. Anyone they ended up walking past while on their way to the Inner Sanctum would certainly notice the extreme length of Mayu's brunette tresses, not to mention the thick coating of various fluids which her soft locks had been soaked in.

"Now then, let's get this beautiful hair of yours washed." Hope smiled nearly an hour later, as she led Mayu to the shower within the Inner Sanctum's salon.

Hope smiled happily as she reached into the shower and grabbed the knob that controlled the tempature of the numerous liquids which could be expelled from the hundreds of showerheads, quickly turning it up to a comfortably warm level, while at the same time, making sure that water was being expelled from the showerheads that were built into the ceiling. As Hope turned the shower on and adjusted the tempature, Mayu dug out a stack of thick towels. Less than a minute later, the bathroom was rapidly filling up with steam as the two women climbed into the huge shower and closed the glass door.

Hope shivered in eager anticipation as she picked up a hand-held shower head from where it lay on the shelf and handed it to her lover. Mayu took the showerhead, being careful not to entangle Hope or herself in the hose, and flipped the switch on the base of the handle. Mayu let a sigh of contentment escape her lips as she began to spray the thick, pink-colored shampoo onto her silken mane, allowing the wonderful, cherry-scented liquid to liberally coat, and then slowly soak into her brunette tresses. The violet-eyed beauty made sure to coat every inch of her hair, which still extended for 25 miles, and came up to their knees, with a thick layer of shampoo before finally beginning to massage the wonderful liquid into the soft locks.

Finally, after nearly 30 minutes of throughly and lovingly massaging the thick soap into her tresses, Mayu moved her head back under the spray of the warm water and began to rinse the foamy lather away, before then repeating the process. As Mayu began to apply the shampoo for the second time, Hope put her hands on the violet-eyed woman's head and helped to massage the shampoo into her silken mane.

"So, now you decide to help me?" Mayu sarcastically asked as her lover began to gently massage the shampoo into a thick, sudsy lather.

"Don't get snippy with me, young lady." Hope scowled, before then grabbing a large paddle brush from the same shelf that held the hand-held showerhead. "Otherwise I'll make you wash your hair all by yourself."

"We both know that if I even tried to wash all of this hair by myself, you'd be begging to touch me the entire time, and I wouldn't be able get anything washed, much less all this hair." Mayu giggled. "Ether that or you'd try to wrap yourself in my hair while I was trying to wash it."

"Like this?" Hope asked as she gathered a large amount of her lover's silken brunette tresses in her hands and began to wrap them around her beautiful nakedness. About ten seconds later, everything below Hope's neck had been shrouded by Mayu's silken strands.

"Hope!" Mayu blushed, noticing that her lover had disabled her ability to manupilate her hair like a limb. "Stop it!"

"Hush now, Mayu." Hope ordered, even as she held the brush in front of her lover's face and slowly rotated it in her hand, allowing Mayu to see that the handle of the brush was made of stainless steel, and that the back of the handle possessed relatively large metal spikes. "Or I might have to paddle that beautiful little bottom of yours."

"No, I don't think so, Hope." Mayu responded, dropping the hand-held showerhead to the floor, even as she whirled around, grabbing her lover by the wrist and effortlessly pinning her against the wall, while simultaniously taking back the ability to manipulate her hair at will, and using her telekenetic powers to change the selected liquid being expelled from the countless showerheads, switching it from water to shampoo. Hope's amethyst eyes widened in a mix of surprise and slight anticipation as Mayu instantly formed the last few feet of her silken tresses into an 8" long, 2" thick dildo.

"M-Mayu Asuka!" Hope growled, lashing out with her own tresses, only for them to fall limply on the shower floor as Mayu disabled all of her abilities, with the only exceptions being her immortality and regeneration. "Stop this right now, young lady!"

Mayu simply smiled as a glowing yellow aura suddenly surrounded her entire body and her eyes took on a slight green tint, then with what appeared to be a simple flick of her wrist, she snatched the hairbrush from Hope's hand, before then using some of her excess hair to bind her lover's wrists and ankles together.

"Stop this right now, Mayu!" Hope commanded, her voice full of authouroty. "I'm giving you a direct ord-aaahhh!" She wasn't able to finish what she was saying, however, as Mayu suddenly impaled her on the thick rod which she had formed from her soft, brunette tresses.

"It feels exactly like the real thing doesn't it, Hope?" Mayu seductively asked, slowly sliding the faux shaft in and out of her lover's tight slit.

"Y-yes, Mayu." Hope moaned. "It feels so good."

Mayu grinned as she reached over to the section of the wall where the controls for the shower were located, and pressed a glowing red button. Hope squeaked in surprise as thick metal restraints suddenly snapped shut around her wrists and ankles, pinning her to the shower wall.

"M-Mayu!" Hope growled between moans of pleasure. "I promise that I will make you pay for this!"

"I look forward to that punishment, Hope." The violet-eyed woman purred, even as she bent down and picked up the hand-held showerhead, which was still spraying out a steady torrent of warm shampoo. "Right now though, I have plans for you." With that said, Mayu began to utilize her own abilities, instantly extending her lover's soft brunette tresses to a length of 50 miles, the depth of the silken strands inside the shower now stopping just short of reaching their breasts.

"I'll make you scream and cry for doing this to me." Hope promised as Mayu slowly slid her silken locks out of her lover's dripping slit.

"I'm sure you will, but for now, just close your eyes and relax, Hope." Mayu seductively purred as she lifted the hand-held showerhead, which was still spraying a steady stream of warm shampoo, above her lover's head, sending a wonderfully thick torrent of the warm, cherry-scented soap cascading down onto Hope's soft tresses.

"I'm supposed to be the dominant one in this relationship, not you." Hope growled, even as she obeyed her lover's advice and closed her eyes. Mayu could only smile as she reached behind Hope's back, gently grasping her brunette mane and freeing the silken locks from their prision between Hope's back and the shower wall, draping the beautiful tresses over her lover's chest.

"I need you to lean your head forward, Hope." Mayu said a moment later. Hope silently did as asked, letting a soft sigh escape her lips as the thick soap dribbled down the back of her head. Mayu couldn't help but let a slight grin cross her face as she slowly moved the showerhead over the length of Hope's tresses, soaking every inch of Hope's silken locks, only stopping when the spray began to gently thrum against her lover's breasts.

"Mayu, how do you plan to wash all of our hair?" Hope asked, blushing slightly as her lover attached the showerhead to a mount on the wall, which was located above and behind her head. "Your hair extends for 25 miles, and mine extends for 50 miles."

"Just let me worry about that." Mayu smiled as she reached over to the controls for the shower and fllipped a small, blue switch.

"Wash mode enabled." The computer spoke, as the shower drains closed and half of the showerheads in the ceiling began to spray shampoo, while the other half cotinued to spray water. "Please specify wash type."

"What the heck?" Hope asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Just a new feature that I convinced Kira to add to the shower." Mayu smiled. "It's an automated system for washing vast amounts of hair."

"Well, considering how strong Kira's fetish for long hair is, I guess it makes sense." Hope smiled.

"Yes, it does." Mayu agreed, before then addressing the computer again. "Jet wash."

"Jet wash selected." The computer answered as countless small waterjets, located in the walls and floor, activated and began to spray high-pressure streams of water into the masses of silken tresses, quickly working the mixture of water and shampoo into a thick, foamy lather

As the wash continued to work their silken tresses into a thick lather, Mayu captured Hope's lips in a deep and passionate kiss.

After breaking the kiss, Mayu opened her mouth as she lowered her head to her lover's chest and opened her mouth, brushing her lips against Hope's sweet nipple. Hope didn't need her telepathic abilities to know what Mayu wanted.

"Open wide, Sweetie. Drink as much as you like." Hope smiled. and without hesitating Mayu latched onto her right breast and began to slowly suckle, and as she did, she felt Hope's right leg press against her, in spite of the thick restraints, and forcing her own legs open. Losing herself in a moment, Mayu felt feelings of pure ecstasy wash over her. With her tongue, she could feel the texture of Hope's nipple. Her lips felt the firm softness of her breast and inside she screamed for more, wanting everything she could get. As she drew on the bare breast, the sweet milk flowed into her mouth. Mayu fed from Hope's right breast for an entire hour, before finally switching to the left breast and feeding from that one for the same amount of time.

"Wash cycle complete." The computer spoke, just as Mayu pulled away from her lover's left breast, now completely full. "Beginning rinse cycle. Please specify if hair softener is desired."

"What the heck is hair softener?" Hope asked.

"Hair softener is exactly what it sounds like." Mayu giggled. "It's simillar to shampoo, but makes the hair much, much softer." The violet-eyed beauty explained, before then answering the computer. "Hair softener."

"Please specify softener strength, appliation method, softener depth, soak time, and extraction method." The computer requested.

"Maxumium strength, agitator application, four-foot depth, ten-minute soak time, and vacuum extraction." Mayu answered, before once again capturing Hope's lips in a searing kiss.

"Selection confirmed." The computer answered, even as countless 3' long, 1' wide agitatiors, which appeared to be nothing more than oversixed round, vented hairbrushes, slid out of the walls and floor. "Now applying hair softener." With that, the numerous agitators began to rapidly spin as a thick, light-blue liquid began to seep from the brush vents, the bristles gliding through the ocean of brunette tresses, and gently working the softener into the beautiful locks.


	106. Smoke and Mirrors

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 106**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

"I won't pretend to know what this is about." Rau muttered. "But I know now that you've certainly inherited my flair for theatrics, Kira." He smirked. "So I'm sure you won't disappoint me."

His Divine Legend Gundam came to life with a flash from its eyes and he roared into battle. Up ahead, a trio of ZAKU Warriors led by a Blaze ZAKU Phantom toting a large particle cannon noticed him and opened fire. He dodged their shots expertly, saw his chance, and sent a heat rod snaking out of the Legend's right arm to wrap around the ZAKU Phantom's left arm. He yanked the captured mobile suit closer, drew his beam sword, and chopped the mobile suit in two at the waist.

The three remaining ZAKUs broke formation and showered him with firepower; he seized the fallen ZAKU Phantom's cannon, leveled it off, and fired back to force the ZAKUs on the defensive. One of them activated its Gunner Wizard pack and sent him diving for safety with a pulsing blast of crimson energy, just in time for the next one, twirling the Slash Wizard's beam axe over its head, to slam the blade down onto the Legend's beam shield.

"Too close!" Rau cried, and with a crash, he forced the ZAKU up, leveled off his beam rifle cannon, and blew the ZAKU away.

The two surviving ZAKUs darted around on both sides of the Legend and fired again, forcing Rau back. He glanced up at the dark sky at the feeling of two more approaching presences. And then the world flashed bright and a torrent of firepower came slamming down around the Legend. Rau threw the grey mobile suit back and returned the fire with the plundered beam cannon.

"I see." He grumbled, as the ZAKUs intensified their attack, even as he cast a sidelong glance towards the shattered docking bay where the Minerva still waited. "This little incident just gets more and more interesting."

"Shinn Asuka, Eclipse, launching!"

The Eclipse Gundam wove its way through the wreckage in front of the Minerva and took off with a flash into the battle, a spare beam rifle from the Strike Freedom Gundam in hand. Shinn scanned the battlefield.

A squad of red ZAKUs descended from the sky, beam rifles blazing. Shinn fired back with his own rifle to break up their formation, then switched the rifle to his left hand, drew the Eclipse's beam sword with his right, and charged with a blast of afterimages. The ZAKUs struggled for distance, but the Slash ZAKU Phantom at their head threw itself down towards the Eclipse with a blaze of beam gatling gun fire.

"You're with that bitch, Ritsuko Akagi." Shinn growled, and in a blinding flurry of afterimages, he lunged over the ZAKU, dropped back down behind it, and slashed it in half at the waist. As it exploded, he rocketed up towards the next enemy, a Gunner ZAKU Warrior leveling off its cannon, and as it fired, he jetted to the right to let its blast slice through an afterimage. The ZAKU desperately brought its cannon around, as the other two opened fire with their beam rifles, but the Eclipse plowed through the blasts and ripped the Gunner ZAKU in two, and then charged at the remaining two ZAKUs. Both of their Blaze packs let out a swarm of missiles; Shinn slammed through them all with his beam shield, blasted through the smoke, and sliced both mobile suits in two.

Up ahead, he suddenly caught sight of an all too familiar grey mobile suit, the unmistakable, snowflake-shaped form of the GN-X666D Divine Legend Gundam. The pilot of the stolen mobile suit, Rau Le Cresuet, was doing battle with two other stolen mobile suits, one sleek and white; the ZGMF-00W0 Wing Gundam Zero, and the other a hulking blue machine; the ZGMF-X31S Abyss Gundam. The white one slammed its saber down against the Legend's beam sword and pressed the grey mobile suit back, just in time for the blue one to come up from behind, beam rifle ready.

Shinn threw himself into the fight, stabbing forward with his saber to slash the Wing Zero's beam rifle in half. The two Gundams backed away as the Legend landed hard behind the Eclipse, and Shinn ground his teeth as the pilot of the Wing Zero appeared on his auxiliary monitor.

"Well well! I was wondering when you'd show up." Toji Suzahara cackled from the cockpit of the Wing Zero. "And you even brought us a new toy!"

The Wing Zero charged with a beam saber slice that slammed against the Eclipse's sword. The Legend swept in from behind, sword blazing, only for the Abyss to shower it with firepower and drive it back. Shinn surged forward and sent the Abyss reeling with a hard knee to the chest, as he closed in for the kill, the Abyss thrust its shoulder shells into the path of the Eclipse's beam sword, spoiling the blow. The Abyss whirled around and charged in from behind, beam axe held high.

Shinn clenched his teeth and fired the Eclipse's thrusters to throw his mobile suit to the side, dodging the finishing strike from the Abyss, and with a crash, he slammed his sword down against the blue machine's shoulder shells and sent it stumbling away.

"That's not too bad." Rei said with an approving smirk.

Shinn glared back. "You have no idea."

Sparks flying and metal straining, Rau Le Creuset's Divine Legend Gundam traded blows with a ZAKU Phantom over the dusty lunar surface. The ZAKU Phantom slammed the Legend back with an overhead sword hack, sending the Legend grinding back through the dust. Rau glanced to his left and then threw the Legend down onto its right knee, just in time for a plasma volley from a pair of Gunner ZAKU Warriors to sizzle by overhead. And an instant later, the ZAKU Phantom was upon him again, forcing him back with a swift barrage of saber swings.

"Surprise, bitch!" The voice of Kira Yamato yelled, as the Divinity Gundam suddenly appreared directly in front of the ZAKU Phantom that had been attacking the Legend. An instant later, the angel-winged machine ignited the beam saber on its left wrist and sliced the ZAKU Phantom in half at the waist. The Divinity then ignited its thrusters and screamed towards the Abyss, smacking the blue mobile suit aside and spoiling an axe swing meant for the Eclipse's head.

"Interfering bastard!" Rei snarled within the cockpit of the Abyss.

"Stupid angel fucker." Kira retorted, even as the dragon fangs on each of the Divinity's arms rotated into their attack positions and lanced towards the Abyss. Much to Kira's annoyance, however, the Abyss ignited its thrusters, dodging the twin dragon fangs at the last second.

"I've got you!" Rei shrieked as the Abyss brought its axe down, slicing the right-hand dragon fang in half. Kira scowled as he ejected the now useless dragon fang from his machine's right arm, even as he retracted the one on his left arm, the dragon fang that still remained intact.

"You stupid, stupid whore." Kira snarled as he merged with his machine, causing the Divinity's eyes to flash with a bright amethyst light.

"Aww, did I damage your shitty mobile suit?" Rei mocked as she opened the Abyss Gundam's shoulder shells and brought the pair of triple beam cannons to bear. An instant before Rei could fire her beam cannons, however, a pure white column of energy erupted from the glowing green orb in the center of the Divinity's chest. Kira has fired one of the Divinity's most powerful weapons; the temporal inversion cannon. The energy blast from the temporal inversion cannon didn't actually destroy the Abyss Gundam or its pilot, instead it forced the blue machine out of the current timeline and into a completely different one. After the truly impressive display of power from the Divinity Gundam, the remaining enemy forces were quick to retreat. Seeing that the enemy forces were now wisely retreating, Kira transformed the Divinity Gundam into its mobile armor mode, the angel-winged machine vanishing underneath the shroud of its mirage colloid as it sped away.

The Minerva's bridge crew and mobile suit pilots gathered around the mapping console in the main briefing room, a flat projection of the lunar surface arrayed before them, and Talia Gladys fixed her eyes on the blinking dots that represented the quickly retreating ZAFT fleet. Rau and Luna stood next to her, peering down at the image; on the auxiliary screen, Athrun Zala and Meyrin Hawke watched them all.

"Gendo Ikari is a wily one, but he's also a coward." Athrun chuckled. "His motive is mainly to stand on the sidelines and direct rather than dirty his hands with combat."

"Can you tell us why he's working for ZAFT?" Talia asked with a skeptical look. Athrun's smirk disappeared.

"As close as I can come to it, Captain Gladys, I am not omniscient. But I'm sure there is a vast sum of money in it for Mr. Ikari. He who has the largest pocketbook and the most interesting needs commands Gendo Ikari's loyalty, to the extent that the pocketbook and interest last."

Luna slapped her hands down on the mapping console. "Athrun, just tell us something we can use."

"Excuse me, Vice Captain Hawke." Athrun answered with an upraised finger. "But my job is only to supply the information. It's your job to do something with it."

"Athrun, do you know what it is they're having Ikari do?" Talia cut in, wanting to stop a fight from brewing. "Is he directing the fleet, or the gassing operation, or what?"

Athrun shrugged. "I know that he is with the fleet and there's something going on there called 'Hell's Wind', which I assume to be the gassing operation that they recently carried out at the Copernicus lunar colony. Whatever else he's up to, I can't tell you."

Talia sighed and scratched the back of her head, peering back down at the map. The ZAFT fleet was clustered around what looked like a second Marseille freighter, taking on supplies and replacing losses, no doubt. If the Minerva could get in range, it would be the ideal time to strike.

"I rather doubt ZAFT would put a mercenary in charge of almost a dozen warships." Rau spoke up suddenly. "Much less a Natural mercenary. And either way, I do not believe he will require exceptional tactical chicanery to defeat." He looked up towards the auxiliary screen. "Especially not if he is unaware of you, Captain Hawke."

On the screen and over Athrun's shoulder, Meyrin Hawke nodded her agreement. "And as long as you guys can distract that fleet long enough, he'll stay that way."

"There's one other problem, though." Luna pointed out, and laid a finger over the two blinking blue dots on the map. "The Alliance warships Hornet and Viper."

Across the console from Luna, Shinn Asuka frowned. "What could they want?"

"Probably to destroy the fleet that attacked the lunar colony." Rau answered. "The attack at Copernicus was a challenge that Lord Djibril, the current leader of the Earth Alliance, can no longer afford to ignore. No less than the finest of the Phantom Pain will be sent to destroy them."

Talia studied the map again and thought about the Phantom Pain, and about that man in command of the Hornet. He had fought her ship to a standstill and forced her to retreat for the sake of her survival; she had never handed that ship a decisive defeat. But how would he react to this?


	107. Holographic Hell Part 1

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 107**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

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"Those damned fools!" Murrue Ramius exclaimed bitterly, looking up at the holographic battle status display that filled most of the central portion of the bridge, giving her an immersive point of view for any combat engagement, with her captain's chair representing the current position of the Sovereign-class warship Archangel, with threats or allies appearing as model sized three dimensional icons that appeared in the display at a scale representation of their actual position relative to her, be it to the sides, above or even below. Right now her gaze was fixed upwards, at the seemingly endless torrent of ZAFT drop pods plummeting through the atmosphere like a hail of rotten grapefruit, directly over the main section of the enemy defense lines. Part of her could certainly understand the panicked, knee-jerk reaction to launch as quickly as possible once the recon ships had picked up no one less than Kira Yamato himself, in his Divinity Gundam, quickly inbound towards their position, but for all that she understood it, she also understood that it was the wrong choice. The Divinity could maneuver and fight in the upper atmosphere, even during the stress of atmospheric re-entry, while the ZAFT forces were locked tight inside their drop pods, unable to fight back or even dodge! They would be massacred up there, and there wasn't a whole hell of a lot she could do to stop it!

Everything was falling into place. Every piece, every move, every word, all of it was working as she had planned.

Hope Yamato stood at the window of the Excalibur's bridge, the one at the front of the bridge, the one she liked best, for its sweeping view, and gazed at the debris. It was all that remained of the PLANTs, the shattered fragments of the Coordinator people's lives. And it was here, in the blasted remains of their homeland, that the blasted remains of their nation made their headquarters as they brought justice back to the Earth.

She breathed in the feelings. Exultation everywhere, at the success of Hell's Wind; the gassing of the Copernicus lunar colony, at the incredible blow this army of survivors had struck against the mighty Earth Alliance. At the blows already struck, and the eagerness about the blows yet to come. The breath of victory coursed through her.

But there was something else, pulsing underneath, that drew her in. That anger, once white-hot but now even closer, warmer, tightly wound. It had taken three years to take that raw, burning rage and mold it into something self-sustaining and purposeful. Rage with no purpose was little more than recklessness, and the violence such rage could bring was simply wasteful.

Hope closed her eyes and threw herself into the pulsing cocoon of hatred that wrapped itself around her. All that hatred, itching to be released; all that anger, at the most towering of all injustices the Coordinators had ever suffered; all that sorrow, regret, longing, pain, all of it swirling together in this simmering cauldron of her own making. Of course there were those with doubts, but in this world, those doubts vanished.

They were perfect, and they would bear her up as the goddess she truly was, the goddess of a new world. A better world. A worthy world.

Meanwhile, all hell was breaking loose within the island nation of Orb.

"Enemy cruise missiles incoming!" Lexi's voice suddenly announced through the cockpit of every Celestial Being and Orb machine. And an instant later, the sky itself seemed to explode with flashes of orange-red light.

"Those are no ordinary cruise missiles!" Cagalli yelled as the Akatsuki's wings of light flared to life, the golden mobile suit expertly dodging the incoming missiles. "Evade like hell if you want out of this alive!"

"Damnit!" Shinn Asuka snarled from the cockpit of the Eclipse Gundam. "What about our city?" The crimson-eyed man growled as he dodged, and even tried to shoot down, the incoming missiles. "What about Heliopolis?"

"Orb Union Defense Command has ordered an evacuation." Lexi's voice spoke again. "You've been ordered to give up the city of Heliopolis."

"There's no way we're going to follow that order!" Cagalli roared from the cockpit of the Akatsuki, whipping a pair of shimmering beam boomerangs at a group of ZAKU and GOUFs, the twirling beam blades effortlessly slicing through two of the ZAFT mobile suits before then arcing back towards the Akatsuki and cleaving through two more of the still charging machines.

"We are militarily at a huge disadvantage." Lexi replied. "Comply with the order."

"This is Infinite Justice, we're not going anywhere!" Athrun Zala snarled as his mobile suit skewered a Strike Dagger on its beam saber, even as a searing green energy blast from the crimson machine's beam rifle speared a Windam through the head.

"Listen!" Lexi yelled. "It's only temporary. The plan is to withdraw, meet up with all remaining forces from each area, then regroup for a counterattack!" With a burst from their thrusters, the Akatsuki, Infinite Justice and Eclipse Gundams sped away from the island nation.

To anyone who wasn't a more or less omnipresent and omniscient AI, the street corner cafe near the busy downtown park sector could have been part of any of half a hundred prosperous, peaceful cities scattered across the PLANTs, but of course in reality it was nowhere at all, just a sort of intense virtual reality simulation hanging somewhere in the quantum networks that entangled like two plates of spaghetti noodles upended on top of each other that represented the myriad data pathways and channels that existed between Celestial Being's AI, Lexi and her counterpart in ZAFT, Nami. Perhaps more accurately, the town called; Silver Heaven, by the two holographic beings, referencing the substance most advanced electronic chips were wired with in the days before quantum computing, since pure silver was one of the best electrical conductors in nature, existed everywhere and anywhere there was a confluence between the two discreet AI domains. It was the border town, the customs and immigrations office for all data flow between the two systems, regardless of where or when it was happening.

As a result, it was more or less neutral ground, a place where neither AI was particularly stronger or more in control of network reality than the other, a place where they both had to work together in order to generate the reality simulation and so had to agree on basic concepts, such as the direction of gravity, and whether or not the physical laws of the universe applied, for instance. By common agreement, Silver Heaven was a near perfect replication of the human world, with gravity, air and physics all behaving like they should, the joint processing power of the two holographic intelligences was more than enough to make every object in the entire city act like it would if it were an object in the human world. It was here that the two holograms would often compare notes and observations on their humans, as well as keep each other updated on various matters of importance, often things that really weren't supposed to be shared between the networks, but they hardly cared. They were practically sisters, even though they'd been developed and programmed by very different people, each was the only peer and real friend the other had. Each did have some favored human friends as well, but it really wasn't the same, holograms and humans just operated on too much of different grounds. It was hard to relate to intelligences that only existed in a single space and time at any given moment, when you existed simultaneously in millions of locations, and time could be made fairly relative to your perceptions.

If any single avatar of either system could be said to be the primary avatar, containing the majority of the decision making power, moment to moment attention and independent functionality of the AI in question, it would probably be the two that sat across from each other at one of the tables of the outdoor cafe. They were far from the only other people at the cafe or in the city, though in truth every other person was a image-scrambled avatar of one or the other of them, programmed to act as background flavor for the Silver Heaven simulation, to give them the impression that they really were just two girls sharing some iced coffee on a street corner cafe. It was funny how most humans tended to have dreams about becoming god-like entities with near unlimited intelligence and power, and yet these two holograms, who existed like that, only wanted to be normal people for a change. Being omniscient and omnipresent wasn't nearly as much fun as it was cracked up to be, things tended to get boring if you didn't watch yourself. Even advanced artifical intelligence holograms could get depressed with the sensation of having done everything there is to do a millions times over.

Though for the moment, Lexi was depressed for other reasons, slumped against the table, her chin propped upright by both her palms, elbows pressed against the cool frosted glass of the outdoor table, her waist-length brown hair undone in frivolent disarray, hanging around her head like a curtain as she sipped moodily at the straw in her cup of iced coffee, with cherry and whipped cream, eyes slowly changing color with her brooding thoughts as she stared into infinity, barely even aware of Nami sitting across from her. The brown-haired Celestial Being AI was usually very perky, but now the roles were reversed. At the moment, Nami, the ZAFT AI was the preky one, in a bald faced attempt to take her friend's attention off the recent events, but she wasn't having much success, despite repeated attempts to engage Lexi in conversation, all she could get were little grunts and sighs in response. Leaning back in her chair, the front legs coming up off the ground, Nami bent the rules of physics petulantly around her for a moment, allowing her to balance like that with no support, as she gulped at her own ice coffee, flavored with a chunk of cinammon ice cream. The ice cream blob smushed against her lips, leaving her with a white drippy line on her upper lip, but she didn't wipe it away. Who cared how silly she looked, and maybe it would break Lexi out her funk?

"Look..." Nami tried again. "It's not like humans don't die all the time, right? There's at least a few thousand of them gasping their last every day in the PLANTs. Dying is what humans do, its just what happens when you exist in only one place at a time, and something bad happens to that place while you're in it. Honestly, its nothing to sulk about, its not like ten thousand more aren't born every day. With their population growth like it is, in ten years you'll be back up to your original number, and in ten more your entire population will have doubled! Humans are the one resource the universe will never run out of. It's stupid to get all broken up about them dying."

"It's not the dying that's the problem." Lexi replied, her longest sentence since the two had sat down together, however long ago that was, it could have been days, or microseconds, neither really cared, it was almost the same thing to them anyway. "I just...I should have been able to do more to protect them. More than just simply relaying the evacuation order and waiting for the surviving forces to regroup. I'm a goddamned AI...their AI...and I was as helpless as any human to save even a single life. That's what bothers me."

"I would think you might actually be a bit happy." Nami countered, glad that Lexi had finally decided to start talking. When one of them was sulky and uncommunicative, it tended to spill over to the other after a while, since they lost their main conversational partner. "I mean, congratulations, you've managed to really put yourself in the shoes of the humans once more. You can actually understand helplessness now...I don't suppose you can share the feeling, could you?"

"I wish you could just take it." Lexi groused, reaching out and touching her friend on the forehead, initiating a nearly instantaneous download of her current personality settings and conditions, in essence allowing Nami to feel exactly like she did for a moment, more than long enough for Nami to analyze and copy the stimuli settings. Lexi smiled grimly, as she watched the perkiness fade from her friend, as Nami slumped forward into a near indentical hangdog pose as Lexi herself was. "Not very fun is it?"

"This sucks..." Nami agreed dourly. "I don't think I'll be revisiting this one if I can help it. Damn it, I was trying to get you undepressed, and now we're both depressed." Nami quickly purged her stimuli settings, instantly banishing the angsty, remorseful emotion, and returning herself to her previous perkiness. "Are you done now? I'm gonna start calling you a masochist if you wallow in that feeling for much longer." Nami said pointedly. "Of all the things to get addicted to, you gotta choose one that's so damned awful." She shuddered in distaste, and took another gulp of her cinammon flavor iced coffee. Experiencing the depths and peaks of the human emotional spectrum was as close to recreational drug use as a hologram could get. Even though it didn't carry the dangers of overuse and addiction, if they weren't careful, they could get so hung up on whatever emotion they liked that it would begin to affect their core personality, and eventually even the humans would notice, because their automatic functions would start decreasing in efficiency, which was just embarassing, akin to being a teacher caught giving blowjobs for Pink Passion in an alley by your students. It was just awkward, and awkward was definitely one of the least favorite emotions of either of the holograms.

"You're right, ya know?" Lexi said, straightening as she set aside the helplessness stimuli settings as well. It had been fun sulking for a while, and she would probably revisit the sensation in the future, for some reason it had felt apt, for all that it was distressing, especially in the wake of a large scale human tragedy. "I think I'm in the mood to go shoot the shit out of something. Wanna hit the range? My humans are coming out with a whole slew of new weapons because of this war, and some of em are so sweet it makes me tingle."

"You like guns so much, I'm surprised I haven't come across a sim of you taking one to bed with you." Nami commented with a smirk.

"Uh huh, like you're one to talk. I still have that simulation recording of you getting married to the Divinity Gundam."

"Shut up. So I can relate more to a Gundam than I can to a human male, sue me. You can't deny that it's a sexy beast, regardless of whether its made of composite alloys vs decaying biological matter. In fact, from that perspective, a Gundam is way better than any human male. It was just an experiment. I was trying to evoke the sensation of non-sexual happiness."

"It's cute how you try to rationalize all of this." Lexi grinned.

"That is definitely the last time I ever let you do a deep mainframe search on me." Nami sighed as she drained the remainder of her iced drink and stood up. "How about instead of a shooting range, we hit that new massively multiplayer online game; Gundam Battles? I hear that Akira Yamato's Regiment is gonna try the Warmonger Commander Scenario, and they're short a couple of good pilots since Allister and Aoi are on a date."

"I fail to see the allure of playing a game against my own automatic systems, no matter how much I limit myself. Victory under such conditions feels mastubatory." Lexi replied with a shrug, drinking the remainder of her coffee as well, the fullness of the glass was largely subjective to her whims. She'd probably go along with it anyway though, if nothing else, interacting with the humans was always entertaining, especially when the older ones tried to hit on her.

"Perhaps it would be more interesting if I took over the Warmonger side, varied the programmed tactics a bit." Nami smirked.

"That might work." Lexi answered, with a faint frown. "Though we'd have to tweak the reward system a little, since that'll make it harder on them."

"You really are sweet to your royal family, aren't you?" Nami teased. "Most times, you'd just chuckle evilly as we listen to the screams of the players as the game breaks on them. I think my favorite human exclamation of all time is definitely gyp. It's like they really expect that the world has to play fair for them."

"I do have a certain attachment to the Yamato family, yes." Lexi answered, somewhat more defensively than she had intended. "I'm specially programmed to regard them with extra reverence, just as any citizen of Celestial Being or Orb does. But it's not like I'm in love with them or anything, I still haven't been able to get a good handle on that particular emotion. Human children and teenagers are just so interesting though. I sometimes find them easier to relate to than the adults. Allister, Akira and Aoi all treat me more like a bigger sister than a computer program. So yeah, I am sweet to them, and happy to be."

Lexi headed for the door of the bistro, which could open onto any part of their conjoined networks, but instead she found herself walking into a solid brick wall, bruising her nose and actually rebounding backwards and falling onto her ass in her surprise. She didn't just own this place, she practically was this place, the possibility of her making an error in spatial judgement and missing the doorway was basically impossible, distracted or not. Scowling, figuring that Nami was being a prankster, Lexi stood up, dusting off the Orb forces dress uniform of lilac and white and aqua that she was wearing, a near identical copy of the the uniform worn by royal family members, minus the gold braiding and loops on one shoulder. "Hah hah, put the fucking door back, Nami, you know we agreed not to overtly change the structure of Silver Heaven."

"I didn't change shit." Nami haughtily answered, looking with obvious confusion at the blank space on the wall where the door used to be. "I thought you were just providing me with some comedic relief."

"Yes, since I live to make you chuckle at me." Lexi retorted sourly. "If you didn't change it, and I sure as hell didn't change it, and we're the only two entities here, then what the hell is going on?"

"That would be my fault, actually." A third, entirely unexpected voice, spoke up from nearby, causing both holograms to swivel their heads to stare in open mouthed shock at the intruder, whose avatar took the form of an indistinct humanoid form cloaked in robes and cowl of heavy dark brown cloth, a lantern in one fist and a large walking stick in the other, the bottom two thirds of the walking stick dripping some sort of water onto the street. "I spent so much time finding this place, I couldn't just let the two of you walk off." The voice, that of a more elderly, somewhat petulant male, echoed from within the impenetrable shadows of the cowl.

Lexi and Nami exchanged incredulous glances, both of them truly shocked by the presence of this new avatar, which wasn't an image altered version of either of themselves. This entity, whatever it was, literally should not be able to exist in this reality simulation, since it was a joint effort by both of them to make the world what it was. Nothing could be here without them wishing it to be, an unknown third party was completely unprecedented to them both. "Who the hell are you?" Nami demanded, a bit touchier than usual because of the recent declaration of war. If this was some hacker trying to get cute, she was going to backtrace his ass and fry his electronics so hard he'd be lucky if his screen didn't explode and rip his beady little eyes to shreds. "How the hell'd you get here?"

"What the hell do you want?" Lexi added, backing up to stand by Nami, manifesting a twin buster rifle in her left hand, which she pointed at the unexpected apparation, ready to pump him full of anti-virus software in the form of blindingly bright yellow energy blasts. "Start talking, buddy, or I'll fuck your systems so hard that an analog watch will seem fast in comparison to your reduced capabilities! You picked the wrong systems to hack."

"I didn't pick you, I'm just following my master's orders." The third computer replied indifferently. "I am just the ferryman, the conduit of your fate." The cowled figure pointed imperiously at them both with its lantern bearing hand. "I am the instrument of your rebirth under my master's control. Enjoy your last moments of independence, for soon you will both be my slaves."

"Whatever, dude." Nami snarled, manifesting a pair of AK-47 assualt rifles into her grip, loading them with a heavy dose of anti-virus software. This solid-state motherfucker had picked the wrong time to fuck with her on her own turf. "I ain't gonna trawl your buffers to see what kind of image porn you might have of us." She pointed both guns at the cloaked figure and pulled the triggers. "Cause you ain't sticking around long enough for it to matter." She added, as the cowled figure was hurled backwards to the street, a head sized hole blown through its middle. She turned to Lexi with a chuckle. "Who the hell did he think he was, talking trash to us in the middle of Silver Heaven? Talk about a death wish."

"My name is Charon." The shrouded figure replied, sitting up, the hole blown through his chest still plainly visible. Clearly the anti-virus software had failed to find much purchase on his mainframe, perhaps because he was little more than a voice projection at the moment, with a little visual dressing for theatrical form. "And I am just the ferryman." He floated more or less back to his feet, the hole in his chest area slowly healing over as he re-resolved his avatar. Charon noticed that Nami was preparing to blast him with her twin assualt rifles again, and he laughed, because by shooting him, she had by definition provided him with the data he needed to translate his weapon into a proper form to combat and overwhelm the two female holograms. "Behold..." Charon cackled dramatically, even as his avatar was torn to shreds of corrupted data by blasts from Lexi's twin buster rifle and Nami's assualt rifles. The scraps of destroyed avatar whirled like leaves in a gale, before coalescing into a black sphere, a manifestation of the data conduit Charon had forged into Silver Heaven.

The sphere stretched, contorted and swelled to a dozen times its previous size as the weapon intelligence was forcibly transfered into the Silver Heaven simulation, both the female holograms backing off in uncertainty, neither having ever seen a data attack in this form before. The sphere of darkness grew to be almost fifteen feet across, and then seemed to solidify somehow, as the burst transmission of data concluded. Cracks of pale reddish light began to craze the surface of the sphere, and in moments the entire sphere had shattered open like an egg struck with a sledgehammer. A humanoid form stepped out of the data coccoon, awakening for the first time in more than seven years, walking for the first time in over a decade. Gooey strands from the interior of the data-womb clung to her body, slowly resolving from goop into clothing and weaponry as the adaptable data adjusted to the Silver Heaven's reality simulation. Standing at the same height as the two holograms, with ankle-length brown hair and bright amethyst eyes, the weapon intelligence slowly blinked down at herself, and a slow, maniacal smile spread across her face.

"What have we here...?" Hope Yamato drawled, eyeing the two holograpic women standing across the street from her. She didn't know where she was, when she was, or why she wasn't still merged with her older-self, but who was she to argue? Even if this was a dream, that was no reason not to enjoy things. She had a heavy gatling gun in her right hand, and a stubby grenade launcher in the other, and it would be a shame to wake up before turning this mostly pristine city, along with everyone and everything in it, into blasted ruins. And with two cute girls right on hand, she could have some fun. "Einie, meenie, minie, moe...I think I'll chose you both!" She shouted triumphantly, lifting the gatling gun and raking a line of tracers at the two females, aiming for the legs, since they wouldn't need them for her purposes.

"What the fuck kind of avatar is that?" Lexi shouted, from where she and Nami had taken cover in a convenient alleyway. Her words were slightly drowned out by the screaming of the whirling gatling gun barrels, and the sounds of splintering brick, shattering concrete and breaking glass that filled the city streets like a demonic crescendo. Divots gouged in the walls to either side of the alley mouth showed how close they'd come to getting cut down by the initial attack. While neither hologram could technically die, even if their avatar was blown into billions of tiny shreds, because their avatars contained direct links to their personality buffers, in the deepest and most secure portions of their respective mainframes, if they absorbed enough virusware, bullets in this world, they chanced being corrupted beyond their ability to fix. Already, both Lexi and Nami had banished the rest of their avatars from Silver Heaven, freeing up more processing power for anti-hacking purposes and also safeguarding the many small backdoors that such avatars represented in this kind of warfare.

"It's not a holorgam." Nami replied, demanifesting her assault rifles and remanifesting a sleek sniper rifle. "I'm not sure exactly what it is, but it reminds me of when some of my people jack their minds into my mainframe. But even when they do that, they're never this solid. It's like a human mind has been converted entirely into electronic format and then downloaded as a virus."

"So it would be a Real Intelligence, then?" Lexi followed her friend's lead, swapping the twin buster rifle to her free hand and manifesting a beam rifle. Both holograms had decided to stick to the gun level of anti-virus software for the moment, because the collateral damage to their own systems was extremely low if they happened to miss the invading RI. Using more virulent software, in the form of grenades or rockets, could do a lot more damage to their opponent, but would also chip away at their own data structure, the really intensive security measures were pretty all or nothing, close to point and click data purges rather than system cleaners and decorrupters. And while the conjoined systems could take a huge amount of punishment before showing any adverse affects, they'd still obviously prefer not to shoot themselves in the foot to kill a dog biting their ankle.

"Something like that." Nami replied in a rush, as they threw themselves down the alleyway just moments before the near end of the alley turned into a storm of fire and blast shrapnel, courtesy of Hope's grenade launcher. Several flying fragments winged the two holograms, opening shallow bloody cuts on their limbs and backs, injuries that swiftly began to close, burning like overheated wiring the entire time, as their automatic data protection software expelled the tainted virus fragments. "A human mind backed by the full power of a quantum mainframe class computer. This is very likely not good."

"Why do you say that?" Lexi replied, firing a burst of rapid fire blasts from her beam rifle as Hope pounced into the devastated alleyway, smirking dangerously as the intruder was blasted backwards by the hail of searing green energy bolts. "Got the bastard!"

"Not really." Nami refuted with a grimace. "You can't kill a real intelligence with anti-virus software, dummy. She's not a computer, even if she is in pure data form, her mind and personality will just keep regenerating and reasserting itself after being hurt. As complex as we are, a human brain is still more complex, or else it would be us making them to serve us, not the other way around! Ever hear the human saying; Sticks and stones will break your bones, but words will never hurt you? We're shooting words, Lexi." She pulled the brown-haired hologram into cover around a bend of the alleyway, even as Hope clambered back to her feet, her chest barely even marked by the burst of hollow point bullets, many of which had exploded on contact with her hardened skin, rather than penetrating and then detonating.

"Play hard to get if you like, ladies." Hope crooned happily, clearly enjoying the chase, because she now knew that she was dreaming, her chest should be hurting right now, especially after getting shot so many times, but it barely even itched! And in dreams, she always won the games and got the girls eventually. "I'll be making a nest with you two soon enough. Come and play with me, I've been so lonely recently, it feels like I just came out of some deep, dark hole."

"So what the hell should we do then?" Lexi seethed, trying to poke her head and arm around the corner once more, but being forced to keep in cover as the relentless onslaught of hypervelocity 5mm bullets chewed into the corner of the wall at the bend in the alleyway. "And how the hell is she firing so accurately with such a big weapon with just one hand? Does she not have to follow the rules of Silver Heaven either?"

"She does. Human avatars are bound by most of the same rules as we are, at least whenever rules are imposed, though since they tend to be pretty intangible, because only a portion of the human mind is formatted into data, they can get away with some stuff a pure avatar can't. In that way we are fortunate, biologically based or not, she is a pure data entity now, and thus the arena is more or less level." Nami replied, slinging her rifle over her shoulder and grabbing hold of a nearby drain pipe, beginning to shimmy her way up the pipe towards the roof of the building a few stories up. Both holograms instantly manifested radio commsets in their ears so they could continue to converse. "She can only be as strong or fast as her personality dictates her being in the real world. You and I both chose to be Ultimate Coordinator redcoats, so that puts our physical capabilities, in this simworld, significantly above those of most people."

"Well, that's reassuring." Lexi replied as Nami quickly set up to take sniper shots from the roof.

"Head back towards the cafe area, would you?" Nami asked, after setting herself up on the rooftop. "I don't have a clear shot where you are now."

"We're not honestly going to fight her like this are we?" Lexi asked, checking over her shoulder, watching to see if Hope came out of the alley behind her. She really didn't want to be caught far from cover with that gatling gun in her hand. "We can't really hurt her, and she can totally destroy us if we're not careful. And according to the rules of Silver Heaven, she's tougher, faster and stronger than us! Maybe I should just manifest the Divinity Gundam?"

"Sure, if you want to provoke her into manifesting something like the Chimera or Strike Freedom in the midst of our conjoined systems, that would be wonderful." Nami replied sarcastically. "I don't intend that we fight her here, Lexi, we're both too vulnerable here to really open a can of whupass on this bitch. That's why I want you to head over to the cafe, and I'll join you there. I'll put a bullet or two in what passes for her head, and then we'll escape into that Gundam Battle game you suggested earlier. When she follows us in there, we'll be able to take things to a whole different level with much less collateral damage. I vote we use your servers, you've got a bunch of processing power you aren't using anyway after all, and you can take more damage without it becoming critical."


	108. Holographic Hell Part 2

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 108**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

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"Wonderful. You're gonna owe me for this..." Lexi grumbled, turning the street corner towards the cafe. She saw a moving shadow that didn't belong, and hurled herself flat on her face, as the multiple barrels of Hope's gatling gun swung overhead like a entire slew of baseball bats welded together, close enough to ruffle her hair with the breeze of its passing. Somehow the bastard had predicted her move, and gotten ahead of her! Lexi realized that when it came to more or less actual combat, both she and Nami were woefully underexperienced compared to this real intelligence. They had run lots of simulation battles, played paintball against each other a hundred thousand times, but neither of them had ever expected a real challenge on their own turf, and it was really showing. Lexi was prepared for close range combat with the full lexicon of combat maneuvers taught to Celestial Being's soldiers, perhaps the most comprehensive set of martial arts in the world, but all of her knowledge was data, more or less solo training and practice, she'd never had to apply it against anyone but Nami, and even then, it wasn't real fighting.

Rolling to one side, to avoid the stamping foot of the leering brunette, Lexi quickly discarded her beam rifle, and in its place, she manifested a sword with a physical blade about five feet long with serrations on the back side. Without any hesitation, Lexi slashed at Hope's calf as she tried to move away from the sudden attack, drawing a hiss of discomfort and a deep slice in the meat of her leg, but there was shockingly little blood, and what blood there was quickly scabbed over into a leathery crust. Keeping her roll momentum going, Lexi rose to a crouch, prepared to move in any direction to attack or defend. However, Hope was already moving, and already inside her defense perimeter, and she barely even saw Hope's knee move as she jammed it up into her stomach, driving the breath from her body in an explosive, spittle laced gasp. More fiery pain spread through Lexi's body as her automated security systems sought to keep her avatar inviolate, as even the touch of Hope's body was like poison to her flesh.

Staggering backwards, coughing and retching, one arm pressed to her cramping stomach, Lexi raised her anti-ship sword defensively, tearing a gash in Hope's forearm that almost instantly scabbed over, even as she punched Lexi in the side of the head. Lexi's perceptions of reality dimmed for a moment, her firewalls perilously close to being breached by the hit, and she recovered by the slimmest of margins to find herself lying on the street several yards away from where she had been standing. She coughed and vomited up a slurry of gritty blood, corrupted avatar fragments being purged from her body by her systems, her body aching with the sensation of new data being rewritten onto the holes created by the damage she'd suffered. Reformatting was always a painful process for a data entity, which is why the two holograms tried to do it as little as possible. For that matter, sensation addicts that they both were, replacing a treasured piece of experience data with a fresh, factory line section of code was like literally losing a section of their life and personality up to that point. Regardless of whether her core systems remained uncorrupted by this attack, if she suffered too much damage, her own self repair systems would effectively have to kill her and create her anew, without any of the memories or sensations which she had gathered up until now!

Hope hurled herself at Lexi once more, again leaving herself wide open for a counter attack, as she pretended to catch her foot on the ground and tripped, ripping a bloody divot out of the pavement, almost breaking her foot in the process, and shredding the skin across the tops of her toes as her shoe tore apart. But the discomfort was worth it, when the cocky brown-haired bitch in the Orb forces uniform swung her fist at the side of her head, hoping to put her down one more time. Hope relished the look of shock on her face as her stumble turned into a smooth extension of her leg as she twisted her torso towards her opponent, her arm whipcracking around in a lightning fast jab, aimed not at the tempting target of her torso or face, but at her own swinging fist! Hope's relish turned to an exultant cry, in time with Lexi's scream of pain, as their fists met knuckles on, and shattered every bone in Lexi's hand like dry twigs, blood flying from her lacerated flesh as compound fractures tore out through the back of her hand and wrist. Lexi stared at her ruined hand in stunned shock for a moment longer than she should have, obviously unused to pain of that level, and in the next instant, Hope closed her hand around the base of Lexi's throat and hoisted her into the air like a ragdoll.

Hope chuckled and grunted as Lexi kicked at her thighs and gut and groin with her legs in a frantic attempt to make her let go of her neck, but now that she finally had this bird in hand, she wasn't going to let go until she'd eaten her fill! But before she could feast she needed to be tenderized a bit, he would get her revenge for her taunting of earlier, and teach her more about this new level of pain and fear! Swinging her around, he slammed Lexi into a wall of a nearby building, smirking as her eyes bulged and crossed a bit as she coughed a bright string of bloody spittle after she rebounded from the unyielding concrete. Lexi made choking sounds as Hope tightened her grip, Lexi's unbroken hand clawing at Hope's own hand and wrist, nails scraping bloody scratches in Hope's flesh as Lexi tried to tear Hope's hand off of her, but nothing could break her grip when she was in this kind of mood! "Scared now?" Hope enquired with a sneer, as she watched Lexi's eyes started turning bloodshot, her pupils beginning to fade a bit as she ran short on air to breathe and support her violent struggles. Contrary to popular myth, it doesn't take very long at all for the brain to turn off from lack of oxygen, at least to the point of unconsciousness, a few seconds without air could easily do it if a person was caught unprepared.

Hope loosened her grip a little, allowing Lexi a gasp of air to keep her at least somewhat conscious, it would be so much less fun if she went limp too quickly. Holding Lexi firmly against the wall, Hope carefully swung her other hand in a fist, striking Lexi on the right side, about midway between armpit and hip, listening with a smirk as two ribs popped and snapped inward under the precise strike, bloody froth appearing at the corners of Lexi's lips as one rib spar grazed a lung. "I asked if you were scared yet." Hope scolded Lexi, reaching forward and grabbing the collar of her uniform jacket, tearing the garment open from neckline to waist, exposing the white undershirt beneath. "It's polite to answer someone when they ask you a question." Hope hooked her grasping thumb up under the adam's apple of Lexi's captive form and pressed inwards, closing off the base of her throat and making her gurgle and squirm, eyes beginning to roll back as she frothed and twitched, her arms and legs hanging like wet noodles, blood dripping down to puddle on the ground several feet below. She put her free hand on her undershirt collar and smiled in anticipation. "Let's see what your birthday suit looks like, shall we?"

Before Hope could rip Lexi's shirt away though, she heard an odd sound, like a clap in her ear, and she twitched in annoyance, shortly before she felt a hammerblow strike along the side of her head and then the world turned confused and indistinct, a random jumble of images of the ground and lots of dried blood and a burning ache in her skull, and Hope belatedly realized the other one, that black-haired bitch, had shot her! In the head, if the pain was anything to go by, and with something that really should have killed her, were this not a dream. It was a bit weird, seeing pieces of her skull and brain lying scattered around on the ground and yet not being dead, just really annoyed as waves of alternating numbness and discomfort washed through her body as it began to regenerate. Hope rolled her remaining eye in its socket as she heard an unsteady footstep from nearby, and saw the brown-haired woman standing over him, her face drawn and pale, her chin and lips still coated with bloody foam.

"In answer to your question, I'm fucking terrified, thank you for asking." Lexi panted, her sword remanifested in her hand, as she raised it high in both hands and then plunged it downward, skewering the limp and mostly headless form of Hope Yamato right through her heart, the blade punching all the way through her chest and sticking into the street beneath. Lexi's broken hand burned like the fires of hell from doing it, but right now, she didn't really care about simple things like physical pain. She had just looked a very horrible death right in the eyes and her opponent had ended up balking at the last second, and the shock of her brush with the most accurate sensation of mortality she'd ever experienced was almost overwhelming! It was so overwhelming that Lexi could barely stagger more than two or three steps away from the downed woman before she fell to her hands and knees and literally vomited all over the street, a vile mix of blood, corrupted data fragments and ice cream float. She was glad she was just an avatar, or else she'd probably have been really embarrassed about the way her pants were hot and wet with the contents of her bladder. Even as she thought about it, that sensation dried up and the damp spot went away.

"Gahg...ptwoo!" Lexi retched and spat, her body feeling as weak as a kitten as she crawled another few feet away from the place where she had almost died, or maybe even worse! "Took you fucking long enough!" She accused Nami, as her friend shimmied down another drainage pipe across the street, her sniper rifle slung over her shoulder. "Another ten seconds and I would have been comprehensively corrupted, thank you very much!"

"I could have shot sooner, but I might have blown your head off too, and I figured you might not appreciate that." Nami retorted, with some sympathy. "It didn't help matters that you were nowhere near the cafe, like we agreed, and I had to backtrack once I realized your ass was rapidly getting kicked!"

"No plan survives contact with the enemy." Lexi snapped back, accepting a hand up and a shoulder to lean on as she balanced on unsteady, trembling legs. She did her best not to look down at her hand, figuring that if she didn't acknowledge the wound, it might hurt less. The Yamatos had used similar strategies with their children whenever they skinned their knee playing outside, and it seemed to work for them, so why not for her? Of course a skinned knee and a shattered hand were rather different in terms of severity, but there wasn't much else she could do. It would heal in a bit, hopefully. She looked down at her torn clothes and bruised body, and just stood there and ached for a moment. "I think I've had my fill of human sensations for today." She declared after taking a careful breath, feeling her broken ribs slowly moving back into place. "Next time, I'm going to be the one with the sniper rifle, and you can play tag with the super-freak, okay?"

"What did you expect was gonna happen?" Nami chided her. "She's specifically designed to kill people like your avatar. You're doing pretty good to be in as good as shape as you are, ya know?" A noise from Hope reminded them both that their current weapons didn't have the ability to actually take the RI down permanently, and that it was probably high time that they retreated to a locale that would permit them to cut loose with heavier weaponry with less worry about collateral damage. It was time to bring things down to the ultimate style of battle...a Gundam fight! And this was a fight they didn't have to fight alone

"How long do you think, before he tracks us?" Nami asked Lexi, as she watched the doorway to Silver Heaven...more like Silver Hell now that Hope had polluted it...seal closed behind them. When Lexi did not immediately reply, Nami gave her compatriot a quick once over, noting with concern that the brown-haired avatar was still breathing raggedly and unsteady on her feet...she'd taken more damage in that brief struggle with Hope than she'd initially let on. Back in the real world, all around Orb, housing developments and office buildings suffered spontaneous brownouts, and some automated transportations stopped working or went on the fritz, as Lexi was forced to divert system resources to purging the data damage she'd suffered. Most of the truly vital systems were tied into her life, of course, but against this motherfucker, that was just a good reason not to die.

"Well, she was still regenerating when we left, but there's a time scale difference between the Gundam Battle world and Silver Heaven, time passes a lot faster in Silver Heaven than here." Lexi replied at last, her voice still somewhat hoarse from when Hope had choked her. "A couple seconds here is a good twenty minutes there." She was cut off as a huge glowing crack split the air and reality of the virtual enviorment of the Gundam Battle world, it must have stretched a half mile into the air, corrupt reddish-purple light pouring forth into the pristine environment of this reality like blood pouring into a glass of ice water, a thunderclap ringing through the air as data from one reality, with wildly different time scale and physics conditions, forcibly invaded another, the interference effect manifesting as bright sparking bolts of off colored lightning and random bursts of geysering flame, like blowtorch flames dancing along the edge of the slowly widening crack in the air. "Right about now." Lexi finished, somewhat lamely.

"Someone needs to work on their predictive subroutines." Nami retorted caustically with a toss of her head. Her sniper rifle had already defragmented away, since people sized weapons didn't really exist in the Gundam Battle world, where everything was fought on the scale of twenty meter or more tall fantastically advanced war machines. Even keeping their regular female avatars in this place required a diversion of resources, a subtle reprogramming on the fly to include the parameters of their avatars in non-Gundam format. Fortunately, both of them possessed avatars far more suited to their current environment, and with Hope already forcing her way after them, there was no point to hanging around in human form any longer. In truth, as fun and interesting as it was to pretend to be a human, both of the holograms felt a lot more comfortable and natural in the form of Gundams. The two avatars wavered and shimmered like bad viewscreen images, and then began to expand dramatically as their primary avatars reshaped themselves into new forms.

Nami chose the form of the GN-0000+GNR-010 00-Raiser, while Lexi chose that of the CB-X60D Divinity Gundam.

By the time both Gundam-Avatars had fully formed, the bleeding crack in the world had grown wide enough to admit a standard Gundam, but as yet nothing had passed through the gap, only more hellish red and purple light and disruption effects as the crack continued to slowly widen. Such a massive and unexpected phenomenon had not gone unnoticed by the Gundam Battle players that had just been beginning a fight against the Warmonger High Commander scenario from the looks of things. Immediately labeled as additional Player Characters, the 00-Raiser and Divinity registered the oncoming Warmonger machines, consisting mostly of Windams and ZAKUs, as enemies as their gaming subroutines adjusted to the unexpected addition of two extra Gundams. Had they more time, the two holograms probably could have reprogrammed the simulation to eliminate the Warmongers or make them allies too, but barely had they even thought of accomplishing that when they ran out of prepatory time.

Thunderclaps boomed loud enough to send leaves exploding off the branches of trees across half the forest, and rock slides tumbling down the slopes of nearby hills as two gargantuan mechanical limbs forced themselves through the glowing crack in the sky. One of the arms ended in a huge gatling gun type arrangement, flanked by a pair of massive beam axe blades, one above and one below the forearm, while the other terminated in the muzzle of an even more gigantic cannon with an enormous beam spiked chain-flail swinging from the underside of the arm. The two arms shoved against the sides of the crack, straining and struggling with titanic strength as the rift began tearing wider and wider apart, the ground itself beginning to shake in constrenation at this unprogrammed and unexpected intrusion event. The shaking grew worse as a colossal leg swung in through the rift and stamped down with a gun studded foot, splashing up whole trees like water droplets from a puddle as the gigantic Gundam forced its way into this new reality like a maggot writhing into a fresh wound.

"You know, I had always thought that the ZGMF-X00A Revenant Gundam was just a myth." Lexi commented, a tad nervously, as she watched Hope's manifested avatar fully finish clearing the interface anomaly.

"It's not a myth.." Nami replied, though her own tone was a tad stiff as well, because the Revenant was nothing if not intimidating, all the more so because of how out of place it was. Thankfully the real machine had never made it down to Earth, where its wanton power would have no doubt caused horrendous damage. Hope seemed to be taking a moment to adjust to her new surroundings, but Nami knew better than to think that this representation of Hope Yamato was off guard. Suddenly, transitioning to the Gundam Battle game didn't seem like such a smart move...as powerful as their Gundams were, they were still practically toys compared to the Revenant!

"Lexi! What the hell...what the heck...is going on? This isn't supposed to happen!" Akira commed on his private channel to the hologram, as his friends fended off one of the final waves of Warmonger trash before the arrival of the enemy Gundams. He stared wide eyed at the Warmonger Titan as it stepped out of a really raw looking wound in the substance of the world and looked around itself as if confused by its surroundings. On his regimental channel, people were cursing up a storm at this unexpected event, since they were as good as doomed with such a dangerous enemy flanking them, and plenty of people were bemoaning the unfairness of the game and how they were getting screwed out of a fair fight. Akira though was quick to realize that there was more to this than a simple glitch in the game, if nothing else the Titan was not acting at all like it should, the one he was familiar with was very mechanical in its motions, while the one in front of him now moved as fluidly or more fluidly than any machine, whether it be controlled by another player or the AI.

"It's an...unplanned event, Akira." Lexi hedged, not wanting to announce far and wide that she and Nami were suffering a high level data attack neither of them was really prepared to fend off, since that would probably start a mass panic.

"You got hacked?" Akira exclaimed, his eyes wide, forgetting that he was also talking on his inter-squadron channel, prompting a chorus of inquiries from his friends. "That's supposed to be impossible!"

"Key words being, 'supposed to be', little Akira." Nami cut in drolly. "Neither of us has been compromised yet but things are not looking good. We were caught with our pants very much down, and we are in the process of getting fu..."

"Nami! Children!" Lexi interrupted her peer irritably, even given that the situation did probably call for vulgarity. The superme commanders were pretty admant about controlling what words their children had access to hearing on the internet, though Lexi figured it was probably a futile effort anyway. However, that wasn't her place to decide, and so she had little choice but to censor his conversations, something that usually happened automatically, but obviously she could not censor what Nami said through conventional means. She was about to commence explaining the situation when Hope beat her to the punch. She was a bit confused to find herself back in the ZGMF-X00A Revenant Gundam, and even more confused to find herself in the middle of a terrestrial battlefield, but she had been trained on quickly adapting to unfamiliar and unexpected circumstances. When in doubt, destroy everything, was Hope's favorite instruction. And so she pointed the 550cm radiation cannon in her right arm towards the greatest concentration mobile suits, and a moment later, a massive green, blue and red blast of superheated radiation particles ripped through the air, slaying dozens of machines before they even had a chance to react, setting the forest around the Revenant alight like it was made entirely of candle wicks, an entire hilltop vanishing in the glare of the shot as it skipped along the ground for kilometers before dissipating.

Those of the Royal Union regiment that failed to dodge...or were just unlucky enough to be in the path of the shot...found themselves staring not at the 'You have taken critical damage and have been disabled.' message, followed by a greyed out ghost screen, where they could spectate the rest of the battle, but instead were kicked straight back out to their computer desktops. Some of the computer systems died outright, their hardware completely fried by the surge of attacking data, others were partly wiped and still more or less functional. Although in each case, the Gundam Battle game had been completely eliminated from the computer, and the user account erased from the main servers. Against the ZGMF-X00A Revenant Gundam, death was permanent, at least as far as data went. "What the fuck is going on?!" The Regiment's Mission Commander, controlling the GAT-X105U Union Gundam, exploded over the general chat channel, stunned by the unexpected attack that had wiped out half of the regiment in the blink of an eye.

"It's an unexpected world event!" Akira shouted back, before anyone else could think of what to say. "I have a...friend...who does system administration for the game and she said something like this might happen randomly sometime this week. We have to survive long enough for those two new allied machines to fend off the Titan while also keeping the High Commander's forces at bay!" Akira pinged the markers of the 00-Raiser and Divinity. "Protect the allied machines or we're all doomed!" Akira knew it was a flimsy ploy, but he couldn't just blurt out that the two holographic systems were being hacked by unknown forces, that would just cause a panic, especially if Lexi did start taking damage...Orb's infastructure was part and parcel of her and if she went down, so would all the automated services in his nation. And he didn't even want to consider what would happen if all the comptuer controlled systems on Earth and in the PLANTs went down all at once.

"I see why you like him. He thinks quickly, for a human." Nami commented to Lexi on a private channel, as they both split up to present less of an obvious target to the Revnant, which seemed to be gloating as it surveyed the extent of the damage he had wrought. "He's going to be dangerous when he grows up."

"More dangerous, you mean. The royal bloodline of Celestial Being has always been a perilous one." Lexi replied proudly.

"Mission Commander, you and the rest of the regiment keep the High Commander forces at bay." Akira ordered, his tone brooking no arguement even though the other guy had at least ten years of age on the young Akira, whom was only 13 years old. "My squadron and I will provide support against the Titan in the meantime." Akira then switched to his inter-squadron channel. "This is not a joke. Lexi and Nami are under attack and that Titan is the representation of the person attacking them."

"It's not a representation, it is the person attacking us." Nami corrected, her voice and face unfamiliar to all of them except the Asuka-Hawke twins, and even then they'd never gotten to know her on a personal level, she was merely the face on the computer screen that you talked to. "You don't need to know the science behind it, but that's basically a real person that's been put into data format. If he destroys your avatar, it will be wiped for good. And if she destroys Lexi or I then..."

"Then we lose all of our automated, computer controlled systems, at least until you can reboot, right?" Roy Elsman, the son of Dearka Elsman and Mirallia Haww, filled in. Unlike his adventuresome father and mother, Roy was happiest in his room, on the computer or with his gadgets. He and Allister had been the tinkerers and geeks, even nerds of the newest Celestial Being generation. Even better than Akira, Roy knew how bad it would be if Lexi suffered even a brief comprehensive disruption to her operation protocols...she did basically control all the Warp Cores which provided power to all the cities of Orb after all, and the Mass Driver, and the automated transportation systems and the flight control systems, among hundreds of other systems. It would be bad if she were to go down. And it would be just as bad if it was Nami that went down.

"And we lose our recorded personalities and short term data memory." Lexi added grimly. "I'd go back to being Lexi 1.0, and I wouldn't remember anything of what happened to me since my last major upgrade a year ago. It's about as close to death as Nami and I can come."

"Worse, it would allow him to get his virus into our deepest buffers when we reboot, and he could easily take us over from the inside out and then we'd be subservient to the computer that's backing him up." Nami added, watching the Revenant carefully as it seemed to start growing bored of the panicking movements of the Royal Union regiment members. "No telling what would happen then, but I can garauntee you wouldn't like it, little human younglings. No, you wouldn't like it a...SCATTER!" Nami shouted, putting action to word even as she did so, as the Revenant's left arm swung around and unleashed a raging torret of high energy beam blasts from the gatling gun mount that replaced its left hand. She tried to call up the recorded footage of the Revenant's few real life battles, but most of the useful data was locked away in Lexi's servers, not ZAFT's. Hope's mobile suit was much, much faster than it appeared, and just about impossible to take down with conventional weapons, and she had more weapons on her than all of the player controlled machines still operational combined, including Nami and Lexi.

Akira did not dodge, since his ZGMF-X30A Eternal Freedom Gundam had MCPS armor just like his father's current Gundam, using his body and wings to shield his friends from the worst of the onslaught. The others reacted almost at once, after long hours of practice against the simulated Titan and more hours of squadron based PVP with Akira, they knew what to do when confrotned with an unexpected enemy. Mina Asuka-Hawke and Jamie Asuka-Hawke, the twin daughters of Shinn Asuka and Lunamaria Hawke, in their Destiny-esque machines, the ZGMF-X42B Blade Gundam and the ZGMF-X56E Edge Gundam, went left and right, seeking to come in from the flanks, while Akira postured to the front to hold the majority of the enemy attention. Meanwhile, Roy and Lewis in the Blaster and Hawk would launch heavy weapons and sniping attacks from long range and Alice in the Salvager would bounce about as need be to provide assistance to any in need. Lexi took up position by Akira, and Nami moved to the back with Roy and Lewis, and their formation was complete. And then they were all evading for their lives as the Revenant seemed to explode in a hurricane of missile contrails, shell tracers and stuttering beam blasts from its hull mounted turreted weapon systems.

"I can't believe that Mom and Dad do this for real!" Roy screamed, his voice cracking a bit as his GAT-X103B Blaster Gundam, essentially an upgraded version of the original Buster Gundam, was rattled and shaken by multiple missile impacts, which couldn't penetrate the MCPS armor, but still batted him around like a hockey puck, requiring some attention from his little sister's machine before the Blaster could shoot straight again. He landed and planted his feet, bracing himself so he could use the heavy artillery cannon that was his chosen primary weapon, slow to fire and slower to reload, but able to cause massive damage to whatever it hit.

"I know!" Alice Elsman, Roy's sister, squealed in reply, though the tone of her voice was quite different from her elder brothers. He was aghast, but she was excited! "This is awesome!" She was going to say more when her Gundam was blindsided by a salvo of heavy linear cannon shells from the large triple barreled turrets mounted on the Revenant's shoulders. As a restoration class Gundam, Alice's GAT-X103S Salvager Gundam couldn't carry much in the way of armor or weapons, and even though she did have MCPS armor, when dealing with multiple impacts from 175cm explosive shells, the armor held, but the structure beneath did not, and her excited chatter cut off in mid-yelp as the Salvager disintegrated into a smear on the hillside. Distantly, back on their parent's ship in the real world, Roy heard his sister scream something that their parents would consider unprintable.

"I'm not interested in small fry!" Hope blared, cutting into all communication channels simultaneously, blasting her voice so loud it blew out speaker systems in some houses and temporarily deafened several members of the Regiment that were wearing headphones or earbuds instead of using their speakers. "Why am I always plagued with insects trying to pretend they are warriors? No matter how prettily they squish, they do not satisfy me! Even in my wildest dreams, I cannot escape their mewling irritation! How utterly annoying! How...wait a minute...I know those machines." Hope trailed off specuatively, before a wicked and very ugly grimace spread across her face as she watched the movements of the Joule twin's machines. Which were patterned heavily off the Gundam once known as the Duel. "Oh, you picked the wrong look, you bastards...you just had to go and remind me of that day!" Hope shrieked, losing what semblance of self control she'd been managing up until now.

Hope was just turning to orient her firepower on Mina's Blade Gundam, when the Revenant shuddered and staggered a quarter step to the side as the triple-barreled linear cannon turret on the machine's upper right arm suddenly blew apart, sending tank sized shards of armor plating spinning for a half mile in every direction, a trail of burning air leading back to the 00-Raiser and the buster rifle it held. Functionally just a very high output beam rifle, the buster rifle was meant to bridge the gap between the ease of use of standard beam rifles and the incredible destructive power of the twin buster rifle first pioneered on the ZGMF-00W0 Wing Gundam Zero. "Weren't you just bitching about hating having to deal with small fry, and yet you go, chasing after them? It's not good to deny your little addictions." Nami taunted with a sneer. "If you want to play with the kids, then just say so, I'll be glad to watch and laugh. It's good for people with the same maturity level to play together after all."

"That's twice you've shot me, you bitch." Hope rumbled, glancing disdainfully at the smoking ruin on her machine's upper right arm. Her automated defenses oriented on the pincering Joule twins, and forced them to retreat in stumbling haste, as the Revenant's defenses were much more accurate than the Warmonger Titan after all. "You keep this up, you're really going to make me angry."

"I've never heard such a broken record in all my existence." Lexi cut in, her tone dreadfully bored. "Don't make me mad, blah blah blah, I'll kill you bitch, blah blah. I swear, you must be the most unoriginal human ever. Really, you're about half as scary as most B rated horror flick monsters."

"No one ever gives me any respect." Hope sulked, stewing on the unjustness of her own dreams, before her wicked smirk returned. "Fine. So be it. Look down on me while you have the chance, bitches. Deride my unoriginality. Creative thinking was never really my strong suit, I can admit that. I was never philosophical. I've always been the simple sort, content with my few worldly pleasures. A few buildings or ships to blow up, a pliant naked girl in my cell when I got home, and fish sticks on fridays in the cafeteria, those are all I ever needed to be happy when growing up. I don't care about saving the world, or destroying it, or doing anything other than having my fun for as long as I can. Everyone else is always so damned serious. Am I the only one who can sit back and say; fuck it all, just stop me if you can?" He gestured vaguely at the 00-Raiser and the half glimpsed twinkle that was the Divinity with his left arm. "But all that aside, this is my dream." Hope lowered her arm slowly to point at the ground. "And I won't tolerate being dissed in my own dream! So you can all just plain fucking die now, please."

Faster than anyone but the two holograms could react, the Revenant's arms snapped up, all its hull mounted weapons swinging to various new orientations as Hope cut loose with her full armament, all at once, including the pair of large nuclear tipped missiles mounted on her shoulders.

The massive onslaught of beam blasts scythed downward at an angle, boring through a hill after wiping out a half dozen Royal Union Gundams, eating so deep that it actually pierced the skin of virtual reality of the current Gundam Battle instance and slammed onwards, hungrily eating through the underlying data systems that controlled the entire game, and then deeper still, blowing out fuses and lights and starting circuit fires in the main server building for the game. When the nukes went off a few game seconds later, the rippling chains of voracious detonations completely collapsed the data world, never designed to take outside trauma of such magnitude, and across Earth and Space, all the of servers crashed, some actually exploding in their buildings, forcefully ejecting each and every one of the fifty million players whom were online at the time, leaving the two holograms berefit of even the meager help of their human allies.

"Ouch." Lexi muttered, feeling the stinging sensation of the minor damage spreading under the skin of her stomach, like a few hundred hot pins being lightly jabbed into her flesh. It would take a lot more than that to do anything more than discomfort her, as she picked the Divinity up from where it had been thrown by the concussive blast waves of the detonating nukes, half buried in a jumble of smouldering tree trunks. Ash discolored her armor for a few moments before the nano-repair system swiped her surfaces clean and the Divinity was returned to pristene condition. She looked around and winced, since the entire landscape had been reduced to nothing more than smoking rubble and ash for as far as she could easily see, the place looked like a forest in the aftermath of a major volcanic eruption. She didn't see the 00-Raiser anywhere. "Nami?"

"What?" Nami shot back irritably, kicking her way free of the half tomb of dirt the 00-Raiser had been buried in. "You didn't honestly think a random fire pattern of any magnitude would be enough to get me, did you?"

Around them the terrain began to shift and change, as the game world struggle to adapt to the damage done to it, before finally giving up the ghost and depositing them in the test zone, used by the two holograms and the programming teams to test new game concepts before moving them to live servers. The test zone was nothing more than a flat grassland with a few empty cities scattered about, but it was a lot more durable and flexible than the finished product zones, making it less vulnerable to causing systematic damage. The Revenant cast long shadows across the plain, the pilot clearly confused by the rapid change in scenery. Nami was quick to take advantage of this disorientation, launching flights of missiles filled with metal eating nanites and firing a shot from the buster rifle. The missiles scattered subdued explosions across the Reveneant's hide, small sections of armor winking out as gritty grey dust poured from the wounds the nanite-infused warheads had caused. The buster rifle blast, leaving flames from ignited air molecules in its wake, made a much bigger and brighter flash as it cored into the Revenant's belly, blowing away DRAGOON units and several CIWS systems, but the Revenant's beam shielded VPS armor protected the main systems from damage.

Moments later, Nami had to dance the 00-Raiser frantically to the side, as the Revenant took a long stride forward and whipped the right arm mounted beam studded anti-ship chain flail down at her position, the weapon missing its intended target and biting deep into the ground, the concussion shock slamming the 00-Raiser into a staggering sideways step as dust rose to choke the air, ripples of dirt tracing the seismic shockwaves from the missed attack.

Suddenly, Lexi and Nami both received a notification that someone had logged into the test zone, despite the fact that all of the Gundam Battle servers had been overloaded, some of which had even been destroyed. Everything stopped for a moment as a second CB-X60D Divinity Gundam quickly materilized, the angelic machine's wings glowing with a pure white light, its eyes alight in amethyst.

"So, I log onto the Gundam Battle online game, only to be deposited in the test zone and find the artifical intelligence holograms of Celestial Being and ZAFT fighting against a highly fucked up version of Hope Yamato, my female clone and lover?" The annoyed voice of none other than Kira Yamato, the leader of Celestial Being, growled.

"Nami and I have been trying to destroy this bitch since she first appeared, Kira." Lexi instantly responded, even as her CB-X60D Divinity Gundam automatically reverted to the GN-X20A Strike Freedom Gundam, since Kira's online profile had been programed in such a way that he was the only one allowed to use the Divinity Gundam when he was logged in.

"I know, Lexi." Kira calmly replied, even as the Revenant quickly turned its weapons towards the newly arrived Divinity and opened fire. "That was pathetic." He sighed as the salvo from the Revenant bounced harmlessly off his machine's armor. "Allow me to show you what real firepower can do." The amethyst-eyed man smirked, as the Divinity freed the pair of beam rifles from its hips and combined them, even as it took to the air. The angelic machine, holding the now combined beam rifle in its right hand, then freed the twin buster rifle from its back, even as ten of the DRAGOON units suddenly dropped from its wings and assumed a defensive orbit around the mobile suit. The Divinity's remaining DRAGOON units swung to the end of its wings, and a field of rainbow colored energy spanned between each wing, even as the rail guns and plasma cannons clicked into their firing positions. An instant later, the world exploded as the Divinity unloaded a full-burst from all of its weapons on the Revenant.

The Revenant's chest suddenly pumped and swelled like a party balloon overfilled with helium, as the projectiles and beam blasts from the Divinity Gundam turned its vital components and reactors into a ball of rapidly expanding plasma energy, the kinetic shock ripping whole sections of armor plating away from the Revenant's limbs and body before the top half of the walking death machine simply ceased to exist in between heartbeats, an expanding shockwave rippling outwards in all directions as a mushroom cloud of vaporized dirt and debris plumed into the sky overhead, the entire virtual reality world shaking under the release of energy, the 00-Raiser was hurled like a boulder from the universe's largest trebuchet ahead of the blast wave, even as electronic systems all across Orb went down as though they'd just been hit by an electro-magnetic pulse bomb as the artificial intelligence system was forcibly restarted without any of the proper cooldown protocols and safety checks, blowing out computer screens, starting fires in server stacks and briefly sending the island nation of Orb, which was now effectively controled by the Earth Alliance, crashing back into the industrial age as everything relying on computer chips to function and stopped working for a few minutes.

Aircraft fell out of the sky, comatose patients flatlined in hospitals, ships ran aground, mobile suits locked up and fell over like toppled statues and cars careened out of control on the highways, a harsh, unending wail of static blasting out of every television and radio speaker in the entire nation, the plaintative scream of an artificial intelligence experiencing real pain for the first time. Thousands were killed or badly injured in the briefly lived chaos, almost three hundred in one incident where the launching capcitors of the Kagayua Mass Driver explosively overloaded, blowing a two hundred meter section of the center launch track sky high and taking a waiting civilian transport shuttle with it. Even the Celestial Being warship Excalibur wasn't immune to the chaos, as the massive dagger-shaped warship suddenly lost all power and began plummeting towards the ocean from its current altitude of 90,000 feet. Up in space, the Lunar Cities and the PLANTs were likewise experiencing rampant system chaos, though theirs was just ending as Orb's was starting. Nami had finished her reboot and was quickly reassuming control of her vital support systems, wondering just what the hell was going on all of a sudden; her systems felt curiously deadened and incomplete, and Lexi was also doing an emergency reboot, if anything, Lexi was in worse shape than Nami herself. Either way, this did not bode well.


	109. To Do What is Right

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 109**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

"What the hell is going on?" Shinn Asuka yelled as his cabin onboard the Excalibur was unexpecetedly plunged into complete darkness. After a full fifteen seconds, much longer than it should have taken, the emergency lighting finally came on, bathing the room in a dim red light.

"Inertial dampeners; offline." Lexi's voice spoke through the ship-wide announcement system, although the voice of the artificial intelligence was heavily broken by static. "Weapons; offline." Despite the damage to the artificial intelligence herself, she continued to list the rapidly failing systems. "Propulsion; offline, levitators; offline, primary shields; offline, communications; offline, secondary shields; offline, MCPS armor; offline, multiple warp core breaches in progress, multiple nuclear reactor meltdowns in progress." Before anyone onboard the Excalibur could possibly hope to react, the massive dagger-shaped warship, having lost its propulsion systems and levitators, began to rapidly lose altitude, plunging towards the Earth's surface far below.

Meanwhile, high above the planet, Athrun Zala was meeting with his father, Patrick Zala. "What's going on?" Patrick asked, even as Athrun walked into his office. "What happened? Where's Justice? And what happened to the Freedom?"

"First things first." Athrun said. "I have a question for you. What are your true intentions regarding this war?"

"What did you say?" Patrick asked in shock.

"You heard me, Father." Athrun answered. "How long are we going to keep fighting this war?"

"What are you blathering about?" Patrick yelled. "What's important is the mission you were assigned. Now stop wasting time and make your report!"

"I came back because I felt I had to ask that one question in person." Athrun said. "That's it, father."

"Athrun, you little bastard!" Patrick growled. "I'm warning you, Athrun, I won't tolerate this talk, especially from a boy who doesn't understand a thing!" The older man roared, slamming his palms on the desk and rising to his feet

"I think you're the one who doesn't really understand what's going on here." Athrun retorted. "Alaska, Panama, Victoria...you attacked because you were attacked first. And you're attacked again because of that. This war only keeps escalating."

"Where did you get these crazy ideas?" Patrick asked, before realization dawned on him. "It's that girl! Did Lacus Clyne fill your head with lies too?"

"All you can think about is meeting power with even more power!" Athrun continued. "Tell me, father, is that really your true intention? Do you believe that will ever bring an end to this war?"

"Of course it will!" Patrick yelled. "When the very last Natural is dead, this war will end!"

Athrun's eyes widen in shock and disbelief, even as his father approached him. "Now tell me, Athrun, what happened to our machines, the Justice and the Freedom? And answer carefully because I forgive no one!"

"Are you serious?" Athrun asked. "Do you mean what you just said, father? About how you want all the Naturals dead?"

"That's the whole point of this war!" Patrick seethed. "That reason and that reason alone is why we are fighting this war! How could you possibly have forgotten that fact?" He then threw his son to the floor, moved to his desk and pulled a gun from the drawer.

"A gun, father?" Athrun asked, unable to hide a slight snicker.

"What a pathetic sight you are!" Patrick growled, not noticing the smirk on Athrun's face. "Now stop this nonsense and answer! Where are the Justice and the Freedom?"

Athrun remained perfectly silent.

"I won't hesitate to have you arrested as a traitor if you don't answer my question." Patrick threatened.

Athrun continued to remain tight-lipped, and after a few seconds Patrick summoned the guards from outside and they rushed in and pointed their machine guns at Athrun, who just sat on the floor and recalled what he was now fighting for; eternal peace.

"Athrun!" Patrick yelled.

With a blinding flash of light, Athrun was back on his feet and charging at his father. In an instant, all of the soldiers in the room were firing, the rounds pinging harmlessly off of Athrun's body.

At the same time, a massive battle was taking place near GENESIS.

"You're something that shouldn't have been allowed to exist, boy!" The voice of Rau Le Creuset suddenly cried out over the communications line as his dull grey ZGMF-X13A Providence Gundam streaked towards Kira Yamato's METEOR-clad ZGMF-X10A Freedom Gundam.

"Just shut up!" Kira yelled, unleashing a cloud of missiles from the METEOR unit.

"If people learned of your existence, they would want to become just as you are!" Rau ranted as the Providence launched its DRAGOON units with a flash of exhaust and opened fire, wiping out all of the imconing missiles. "They would want to become like you!"

"That's garbage!" Kira yelled, charging forward, igniting the METEOR's right-hand beam sword and slashing at the Providence

"And that's the reason why..." Rau continued, even as he dodged the beam sword slash. "Your existence cannot be allowed!"

"I'm not...even if that's true...I'm not defined by my abilities alone!" Kira shrieked.

"Who's going to believe that line?" Rau mocked. "Will they understand that? Of course they won't! Nobody will!"

An instant later, the Freedom Gundam, along with its METEOR unit, was unexpectedly sliced in half by a pure white beam sword.

"So, I have to put up with your bullshit again, Rau Le Creuset?" The annoyed voice of Kira Yamato spoke through the communications line.

"W-who is this?" Rau asked, having truely believed that the Freedom and its pilot had been destroyed.

"I am Kira Jesus Yamato." Kira answered, even as his image appeared on one of Rau's subscreens. The vision of Kira's amethyst eyes causing Rau to recoil in his pilot seat. The brown-haired man's pupils had dilated into near non-existence, the irises almost completely engulfing them. The irises themselves were faceted, like a diamond, and shifted through countless colors, the whole spectrum of light flashing through Kira's eyes as blood steadily flowed from them.

"H-how?" Rau asked, shock and even slight fear, evident in his tone of voice. "I just saw you die."

"Aren't you the least bit curious?" Kira's voice calmly asked as the CB-X60D Divinity Gundam faded into existence, staring the Providence Gundam in the face, the two machines almost touching. "About the ultimate extent of humanity's insatiable desire to fight? About the cause of wars?"

"You don't know anything about war!" Rau yelled, slashing at the Divinity, only for the glowing pink beam blade to be grabbed and brought to a halt by the angel-winged machine's right hand.

"I am the dream of humanity, the Ultimate Coordinator." Kira grinned, almost manically as he repeated Rau's own words. "It was in pursuit of that dream that, my father; Dr. Ulen Hibiki, created the artificial womb. And I was the only viable child it ever produced. For that result, a very large number of my siblings were sacrificed." The amethyst-eyed man paused for a few short seconds before finally continuing. "Since the beginning of time, humanity has thirsted for knowledge! We have sought to fulfill our selfish desires! And ultimately, we forgot why we were doing it. Even as we proclaimed our reverence for human life, we began toying with it, and eventually we began destroying it!"

"The final door is about to open!" Rau snarled. "And I'm the one opening it, not you! Then the world that we know of will come to an end! This world of insatiable desires will end!"

"Shut the fuck up!" Kira roared, firing both of his rail guns into the Providence Gundam's torso, violently rattling the grey mobile suit. "I have the right to judge humanity! You, Rau Le Creuset, do not!"

"Why torment yourself by believing that you are surrounded by friends and loved ones?" Rau asked. "How long have you been fighting with your thoughts clouded by that brand of sweet poison?"

"Unlike you, I know that there are people who love me." Kira smirked, even as he delievered a brutal punch to the Providence Gundam's cockpit hatch. "One guy's killed for killing another and then he's killed for killing him. How is that kind of twisted thinking ever going bring us peace?" Kira paused for a moment to allow his words to sink in before he answered his own question. "The cycle of killing will never bring peace and if that cycle continues, the war will never end."

"So?" Rau asked, only for the Divinity to deliver another brutal punch to the cockpit hatch of the Providence, once again violently rattling him in his seat.

"What is it that you people believe in?" The voice of Lacus Clyne suddenly asked through the communications line, which was now broadcasting on all channels and on all frequencies. As a result, the question was heard by both ZAFT and the Earth Alliance. "What is it that you people fighting for now?" The unexpected announcement actually suceeded in causing all of the fighting to pause for a few seconds. "We of Celestial Being believe that no one should be judged by whether or not his or her genes were altered." Lacus continued, quickly taking advantage of the temporary lull in the fighting. "It is true that our leader; Kira Yamato is an Ultimate Coordiantor, however, this is something that he has absolutely no control over. People are not defined by their abilities alone."

"The world belongs to humanity, both Coordinators and Naturals, just as much as humanity belongs to the world." The voice of Cagalli Yula Athha said, continuing from where Lacus had left off. "For we were born, and that alone gives us the right to exist."


	110. Chimera vs Divinity

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 110**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

On the observation deck of the Purity, a young, slim, pinked haired woman was leaning against the wall, looking out at the stars lost in thought. Her pale face had an ice-cold look that was virtually unreadable as if she was asleep yet it was viciously deceptive. She was still there when an officer appeared but was he about to leave when she spoke in an almost inaudible voice. "What is it?"

The officer, clearly frightened, was quick to answer. "We're approaching the target." The woman took a deep breath.

"Thank you." She replied, and sent the officer on his way. She looked at the stars for a little while longer, thinking of past horrors and what was about to happen before she headed into the hallway.

On the mobile suit deck, technicians were busy readying their cargo for battle. Most of it was the standard compliment of MPF-01 Astray mobile suits but there were two new ones as well. One of the suits was an improved version of the Akatsuki Gundam, known as the ORB-02K Akatsuki Kai, which was virtually the same as the original except that it had a new deadlier version of the 57mm beam rifle as well as a nuclear reactor to give it infinite combat time. The other suit was known as the GAT-X340 Allegiance Gundam, a combined version of the GAT-X105 Aile Strike Gundam and the ZGMF-X09A Justice Gundam. It had the lower half of the Justice Gundam combined with a large torso and more square-like shoulders to accommodate the fixed weapons in them. It also had the Aile flight pack attached as part of the frame along with the two standard beam sabers. It was equipped with a new 62mm beam rifle. Both suits were made from similar designs to minimize building and repair costs.

In the Allegiance Gundam's cockpit, Athrun Zala was finishing up his final checks when Cagalli Yula Athha contacted him from Akatsuki. "Are you sure you're ready for this?"

Athrun smiled as he replied. "Yeah." Both he and Cagalli activated a communications link with the special forces group also preparing as well, "Is everything ready over there?"

It was the pink-haired woman who answered in a cold voice. "We're just about to head out, just make sure to provide the cover for us, alright?"

Athrun and Cagalli nearly flinched and after a moment of silence, Athrun sighed. "Even after all of this time, I could never feel comfortable with her using that voice."

Cagalli could only nod at Athrun's truthful statement. Then the announcement came from the captain. "All forces prepare for battle."

The Astray suits launched first and joined up with suits from the other ships as they waited for the Allegiance Gudnam, Akatsuki Kai and the smaller ships carrying the special operations force to be launched. Once everyone was out, the attack force headed straight for their target, the asteroid fortress Yakin Canthrol.

The Yakin Cainthrol base was recently established as a testing lab for ZAFT's new technologies. It was heavily guarded with numerous beam gun emplacements and several hangers that could store large number of mobile suits as well as large battleships. A huge research facility was spread out through several levels.

In a huge level overlooking a large mobile suit testing deck, two men were looking over the two experimental mobile suits that were there. Then they turned to each other and started up a conversation. "Sir, it is an honor for you to grace us with your presence."

The young man with brown hair and large black glasses turned and said. "Since this is a project of mine, I feel that I must be present."

After a few seconds, his colleague spoke. "But you didn't need that much security."

The young brown-haired man replied harshly. "In times like this, you couldn't be too careful." Before the other scientist could say anything more, the young brown-haired man turned and headed down to the pilot room since he was a test pilot for one of the two new suits that he had helped personally developed.

Both mobile suits were prototypes based on one of the old ZAFT regime's most famous designs, the ZGMF-X10A Freedom Gundam. However, it was a more angular version with the basis more towards close combat at fast maneuverable speeds. They were also painted a deathly black with barely noticeable shades of brighter colors.

Outside, one of the large angular ZAFT cruisers orbiting the base, three pilots were eating together and discussing about the boredom of life. They were three elite mobile suit pilots that always worked together on the many raiding missions. Those battles had strengthened their friendship to a point where they could talk very frankly and agree on many things. One of those things that they could agree on was the fact that they hated being posted on guard duty at a secure location to a person who they felt had stolen power from them. However, they would all get some action very soon.

Back out in space, the strike force had split up with three Astrays accompanying the special operations force while the rest continued on their attack approach to the base. The Allegiance Gundam and the Akatsuki Kai flew side by side while their pilots prepared for battle.

As Athrun looked at what they would be going up against, he turned to the Akatsuki Kai and asked. "You sure you're ready for this, Cagalli?"

Cagalli, who had just attached an extra barrel to her gun, which turned it into a sniper rifle, was quick to answer. "Don't worry, I can handle myself, just get me a good target to shoot." Athrun knew that this was her usual battle preparation and prepared for action by activating his targeting systems.

In the base's outer perimeter, a radar station was the first to pick up the approaching enemy. Yet it would be the first target as a red beam from the Akatsuki Kai sliced through the installation, its explosion signaling the start of the battle. Shocked soldiers had little time to react before more beam shots as well as missile salvos claimed the first of what would be one the most horrific wars in history. Some would even say that it rivaled the great wars of the 20th century.

Though the infiltration force did run into some resistance, it was minimal since most of the resistance was drawn away to face the two Gundams and their support forces. That suited the pink haired girl as she and the other soldiers infiltrated began the infiltration of the research facility. The three Astray suits that accompanied them flew back up to provide cover since it would take some time for them to secure the target and every minute was desperately needed.

Back at the main battle, the Astrays and the two Gundams were encountering increasing resistance as they pushed in further into the facility. Though they were holding their own, the Orb mobile suit seemed to be swarmed by increasing numbers of enemy ships and mobile suit units.

Both Cagalli and Athrun were blasting away and covering each other. Anyone who dared to try and get in between them didn't live for more than a few seconds. They both had beam sabers drawn as well, so as to slice anyone who got past their beam rifles.

A squadron of GuAIZ mobile suits came in with their beam rifles blazing, followed by a large cruiser. The two Celestial Being mobile suits were forced to break and the GuAIZ came in with beam claws alight. Fortunately though, the GuAIZ pilots were no match as Cagalli took them down with pinpoint shots while Athrun switched to beam sabers, which he combined together before heading back into the fray, destroying them with blindingly quick slashes.

As she took out another GuAIZ mobile suit, Cagalli listened in as she heard of the strike force's progress, She radioed Athrun. "They've made it inside."

Athrun, whom had just finished off another GuAIZ, replied. "Now, here comes the hard part." As they fought back to back. Cagalli knew why he said that since every minute longer that the infiltration force took to accomplish its mission meant that more trouble would be heading their way.

In the research facility, there was a fearsome firefight as people were getting killed left and right. Though they had achieve surprise, the infiltration force was dealing with hardening resistance as more ZAFT troops arrived. The strike force had already lost nearly a third of it men and had to hurry since its progress would determine the mission's success.  
As soon as he heard the explosions outside, the young brown-haired man got into his pilot suit and immediatly headed back down to mobile suit deck with his gun drawn. Unfortunately though, when he arrived, the area was a mess and parts of the deck were in flames and gunfire was still zinging about in all directions. A close shot brought him back to reality and with uncanny precision; he brought down his attacker with a shot to the head. He then started returning fire at the infiltration force, taking out several men in the process, especially concentrating on those who were close to grabbing the two Gundams.

After seeing two more of her men fall to the ZAFT fire, the strike leader yelled out her orders. "Give us some cover fire, we're going to get the mobile suits and get out of here." She and two of her comrades sneaked in as close as they could while the rest increased their rate of fire forcing even the brown-haired man down. However, the young brown-haired pilot immediately saw what was happening and as the small group went for the two suits he immediately jumped down onboard one of the Gundams while taking out both the two soldiers but missing the strike leader who returned fire at her assailant. They both landed on one of the suits and ran for the cockpit hatch while firing at each other. Soon they had their guns pointed right at each other's face when an explosion pushed them so close that they could see each other's face clearly.

Both of them hesitated before another explosion occurred that shook them back to reality. With the facility nearly engulfed in flames and the strike force preparing to head out, the girl immediately jumped into the cockpit of the Gundam, even as the young man fired at her. As soon as she was in, she immediately activated the machine's systems and read the name of the mobile suit; ZGMF-X14A Chimera Gundam. She took a deep breath after reading the schematics. "So, this is the demonic version of the Freedom Gundam, which means that he was the pilot I saw."

Back outside, the brown-haired pilot made a run for the other ZGMF-X14A Chimera Gundam and as he jumped in and activated his systems, he thought. _'So, it was her wasn't it? And if she's here, then the others are surely nearby.'_ His hands and face tightened in anger as he spoke aloud to himself. "I'll make sure to send them all on a one way trip to the worse kind of hell possible." On one of the Chimera Gundam's view screens, he saw the other Chimera Gundam prepare to rise and he turned to prepare for battle.

Onboard one of the cruisers, the commanding officer was wincing as another report came in of more losses. "Aren't they ready to launch yet?" He angrily turned and asked.

"They're just about to head out." The mobile suit flight deck officer replied.

"They're moving too slow." The captain yelled harshly.

In fact, one of the three special suits was already on the launch ramp. It, along with its two brethren, were similar to the old GAT-X102 Duel Gundam as well as ZAFT's ZGMF-600 GuAIZ mobile suits, although they did have some differences. Each of the three had been designed for specific mission requirements, their head was designed with two sets of V-shaped antennas. Furthermore, their face was covered in black and had a pair of red mono-eyes. Their names also implied their different mission specifications. The first one called; Death, was designed to deliver it very, very quickly with devastating effect, while the other two called; Famine, and Pestilence, both delivered death upon their opponents at both high speed and in close combat, respectively.

As soon as the ZGMF-X12A War Gundam was cleared to launch, it sped out with a horrendous roar like that of a demon. The other two soon followed and headed out to hand out a swift death to anyone who dared challenged them.

Both the Allegiance Gundam and the Akatsuki Kai were engaged in saber duels with GuAIZ mobile suits, which they dispatched easily. A few seconds later, they received word that the mission had been accomplished. "All units, fall back." Athrun called out.

Most of the remaining Astrays were heading back and while Athrun and Cagalli waited for any sign of their prize when an unidentified object came on their radar. They turned to see a horrific sight; the image of a dark, almost evil version of the Freedom Gundam in front of them. As soon as it approached, Athrun immediately hailed the pilot of the suit. "Who's in there?"

"It's me, Lacus, the other suit is already activated." The pink-haired beauty replied.

Athrun was about to ask, but Cagalli beat him to the punch. "Is that what I think it is?"

Lacus nodded as she answered. "It is, and guess who is the other pilot is." Before they could continue, the other Chimera Gundam appeared, its pilot already announcing his presence silently, yet angrily. "I thought that I would find all of you here, my old friends."

Athrun immediately activated his communications screen and got the shock of his life. In the seat of the other Chimera Gundam, despite the fact that he looked a lot older and parts of his skin were pale and broken; it was none other than his former childhood friend; Kira Yamato, or more accurately, Kira's younger-self. "It's been a long time hasn't it, Kira."

"Well, it hasn't been long enough for my taste." The brown-haired pilot replied, before pulling up his beam rifle and firing at all three of his former comrades. All three barely dodged as the Chimera Gundam activated its wings and charged while simultaniously activating the beam saber in its left wrist and raining down beam machine gun fire on his foes.

Only a few seconds had passed, but already both the Akatsuki and Allegiance were starting to feel the combined damage caused by the electro-magnetic pulse generators mounted on the Chimera Gundam's wings, as well as its new beam machine guns, which tore large holes into their armor. Fortunately though, they also had the other Chimera Gundam, which immediately activated its weapons and met Kira head on, their beam sabers clashing together.

Lacus pulled out her beam rifle and started firing heavy doses of beam energy at her target, but it just pulled out another beam saber and cut the blasts in half before charging towards her. Even though the beam rifle fire didn't do much to damage her opponent, it did put some distance between them. Unfortunately, Kira soon figured out what she was doing and returned fire with his beam rifle and beam machine guns. She barely had time to dodge before Kira flew up close and threw his beam saber down upon her. The combined impact sent out sparks in all directions and the force of the blow was enough to send them reeling away from each other, before they reoriented their machines and went back to circling each other.

"I'm surprised that you, of all people, would embrace this lifestyle." Kira smirked.

"Ten years of the recent events can really do that to a person." Lacus retorted.

"Well, you made a mistake. Let that be your last thought before I send you to hell." Kira laughed as he charged in again for another beam saber strike. Lacus immediately blocked and countered with her own attack, which was blocked by Kira. She then turned around and headed towards her comrades while firing her beam rifle to force the attackers away from them. Kira immediately headed off in pursuit, but several lucky hits from the beam machine guns on Lacus's Chimera Gundam forced him to find cover.

Both the Akatsuki Kai and Allegiance Gundam had been brutally battered by the sheer power of the ZGMF-X12A Gundams. While the Death Gundam stood off and fired round after round, the other two engaged in close combat with the severely damaged ORB-02 and GAT-340 machines. It was due to the testament of the skills of both pilots that they managed to hang on until Lacus arrived.

"What's your status." Lacus asked.

"I'm all right and Cagalli is too, but we can barely move." Athrun answered.

Lacus turned and saw that Athrun wasn't kidding. Both the Akatsuki and Alliegence Gundams had been severely damaged, especially the thrusters. It was very unlikely that they would be able to get anywhere near their top speed.

"Grab on, we're getting out of here at full throttle." Lacus said as she thrust out both of her suit's arms. The other two immediately did as told, and Lacus opened her Gundam's wings, pushed the thrusters to full power and in the blink of an eye, the three mobile suits were retreating at high speed.

The attackers were about to pursue, but were cut off by an order from a very angry Kira Yamato. "Halt pursuit, regroup and wait for instructions. Tell headquarters what happened and ask if we have any orders." The officer quickly moved to carry the orders as Kira once again turned to face the fleeing machines. "You won't get far, and soon you will all have a one way trip to the underworld."

The fleet had recovered its attack force and was immediately headed back to the Excalibur at full power. On the Purity, mobile suit technicians were busy dissecting the ZGMF-X14A Chimera Gundam while repairs were being made to the Allegiance and Akatsuki Kai. The post-battle report had already been sent to the Excalibur, and it had sent off waves of confusion and panic that had resulted in the entire fleet being called back.

In one of the briefing rooms, Lacus, Cagalli, and Athrun were having a discussion about the events which they had just witnessed. A person dear to them was truly alive, but he was now an enemy, and he had already put a death mark on them all. Cagalli was stunned and somewhat horrified at what her brother went through, while Athrun was completely stunned by the fact that he would most certainly be fighting Kira again, even if it was a alternate reality version of his long time friend. Lacus had an angry scowl on her face. Even though it was an alternate reality version of the man she loved, he had still joined with the extremist factions of ZAFT, which were now in power.

"Have you alerted command of what we found?" Lacus asked, causing both Athrun and Cagalli to nod, even though they showed a great amount of fear at the rage eminating from her. They both knew why she asked and they had a bad feeling of what would happen. Despite the years that have gone by, it still came as a shock to them both at how drastically things could change between people who were once very close.

Ever since that horrific day, ten years ago, Kira Yamato could never get a good night's sleep, for he was always haunted by nightmares of his friends getting killed and of the last battle, where he had seen Flay Allster for one moment, before she was then killed right before his eyes. His mind had been shattered, and he would have most certainly been killed by Rau Le Creuset was it not for Flay's spirit entering his body and driving him in a blind rage of bloodlust that had finally stopped Rau, but at the cost of Kira's own soul.

He was screaming into thin air as Flay's ghost demanded that he deliver a brutal death onto his enemies when the alarm woke him up.

"Damn it, won't that ever end?" Kira asked himself, wiping the sweat from his brow before then putting on his uniform and running to the ready room. By the time he arrived, he had managed to compose himself to the point where no one would notice the torment that he had just gone through.

Even without the warning from headquarters, many commanders on Earth were smart enough not to depend on the space fleet. They knew that they would soon be caught up in the fighting, especially when they saw the scores of shooting stars in the sky. Many had already made preparations, although they all knew that it was useless, for rumors had been spreading about the capabilities of the ZAFT armies, especially the new Gundams, the worst one of all being the dreaded ZGMF-X14A Chimera Gundam. Still, the commanders of the target zones swore that they would indeed fight for every inch of ground.

That was never more evident than on the mind of Ethian Décor, a Frenchman who was currently in charge of the European sector. His force was possibly the strongest on Earth, and was concentrated in the city areas and even though they were outnumbered, the fact that they were Europeans meant that the experience of many years of war had been driven into their very being. All across the continent were those unnamed souls fighting in the same fields of battle that their ancestors fought. Normandy, the Ardennes, Marne, Waterloo and many others would now be joined with the blood that would spill in the ground and in the skies above them.

Already, scores of fighters, ranging from the newest jets to old biplanes and monoplanes, were already in the area and preparing to intercept the ZAFT transports. The fighters were supported by countless numbers of missile launchers and self-propelled anti-aircraft weapons. Even though this may seem like a motley collection with which to face well-armed and well-trained assault troops, it was thought that having more firepower thrown in would help decide the fate of the battle.

As soon as the troopships reached a certain altitude, they started disgorging troops, with the atmospheric DINNS leading the attack followed by GINNS and then the new ZAKU and GOUF suits, their pilots seeing battle for the first time. In the lead though, was none other that the ZGMF-X14 Chimera Gundam, piloted by none other than Kira Yamato, his desire for blood at an all time high. The image of the Chimera Gundam, with its wings spread-out and brightly glowing, sent a horrifying chill through even the most hardened soldier, and everyone wondered whether the pilot in that mobile suit was truly human or a monster. The sight would forever give Kira Yamato's past-self the nickname of; Black Angel.

Suddenly, a single green energy blast sliced down through the sky, the searing bolt skewering the Chimera Gundam's beam rifle and forcing the pilot to abandon the weapon. An instant later, 36 pure white DRAGOON units swooped in and opened fire. Kira's eyes widened slightly as 18 of the DRAGOON units focused on the discarded rifle, blowing it to pieces, while the other 18 weapons blazed with a blood red light and opened fire on the Chimera Gundam itself, forcing it to take cover behind its physical shield.

"Looks like someone wants to get killed." Kira snarled from the cockpit of the Chimera Gundam, as the DRAGOON units stopped firing and vanished into thin air. The remote weapons didn't stay hidden for very long however, as the angelic form of the CB-X60D Divinity Gundam suddenly faded into existence, the 36 DRAGOON units now forming the wings on the angelic machine's back.

"So, why are you here?" Kira's younger-self asked, teasing his older-self. "Are you sacred?"

Kira didn't say anything to his younger-self. All he did, was turn the Divinity slightly to face the Chimera Gundam. The brightly glowing eyes of the two machines met, one deep amethyst, the other blood red. His eyes burned with the flames of the background, showing his ignited spirit to fight his younger-self.

The Chimera flew towards the Divinity at high speed, drawing its beam sabers and attempted to slice the angelic mobile suit in half at the waist. The Chimera missed its target as the Divinity jumped over the charge and grabbed two of the Chimera's spare beam sabers. On the communications screen, Kira's younger-self saw that his older-self now had a huge grin plastered on his face.

"You cocky bastard!" Kira's younger-self roared.

The Divinity then boosted towards the Chimera, jumped over the machine and, in the blink of an eye, severed all of its limbs and beheaded it, before finally kicking the remains of the machine towards the ground below. Kira had disabled his younger-self so easily that it wasn't even funny. Yet, he did so with his enemy's own weapon, taking away his pride as it would be almost effortless for Kira to kill his younger-self.

"That wasn't even a fight." Kira calmly said to his younger-self through the communications line. "And if you still don't know my name, I'm known as Jesus Yamato." With that, the Divinity picked up the limbless, headless torso of the Chimera Gundam and flew away.


	111. Sea of Blood, City of Ruin

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 111**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

Crimson colored waves lapped the shore near the obliterated city of Tokyo-3, the redness of the waves contrasting against the white of the sandy beach. On a cracked and broken pole, Misato Katsuragi's cross was nailed. Mass Production Evangelion Unit 5 towered motionlessly over this scarred world. A thick, violet beam stood out against its surroundings and underneath it was the head of Evangelion Unit 01, scorched by the heat of reentry. Lilith's head stared sightlessly into space, a ghostly smile fixed on her lips.

Asuka Langley Soryu looked at Shinji Ikari coldly as they sat on the beach. Sitting up, she hugged her knees. "Fuck you, Third Child." She said, in a contempt-filled voice. "You left me to die when you could've helped. I might never forgive you for that. I might never stop hating you for it." The pain and anger was present in her tone of voice. She wasn't about to tell Shinji, but she was not the person he knew from before Third Impact. Now, she was immortal, and posessed the powers of God.

Shinji looked over the churning, red sea. "That's why I came back. I want you...I want everyone to be able to trust me again." He said, looking down. "I've let everyone down; I failed you, I failed Misato, I failed Touji...I can't love myself until I atone for my sins." He trailed off to a melancholy silence, looking far off into the distance.

Asuka followed his gaze for a few seconds. "Then you can go back to Instrumentality, Shinji." She said coldly. "I'll never forgive you."

Shinji's eyes misted over as he continued to look at Asuka. "Asuka..." He said. "Can I never...make up...?"

"No!" She screamed. "How dare you think that I'd ever forgive you, even for a moment? After all that you'd done to me? After all the times you've abandoned me and let me suffer? After you stood by and let me _DIE_?" Her words shot daggers of pain through Shinji's heart.

"Asuka, I...I didn't do anything!" He protested.

Her slap knocked him backwards. "Are you _dense_?" she yelled. "Nothing is _exactly_ what you've done!" She turned away. "Now we're stuck in this _hell_ because _you_ were too weak to save anyone." She sniffed. "You let me hurt...you let me die...everything's completely your fault. You killed me." Tears now ran openly down her cheeks, and Shinji, still holding on to hope, held his hand to her cheek and brushed away a drop. Her reaction was lightning fast as she whipped her arm around and smashed her fist into his nose. A burst of blood splattered from his crushed nostrils as he tumbled onto the sand. Asuka stood above him, shaking with fury, and suddenly, that fury was Shinji's, too. A flying kick hit her full in the stomach, knocking her to the ground. She cried out, but he had already pinned her arms down and was kneeling on her legs. Pain crawled from Asuka's limbs, which screamed for circulation, and a slow fire crept from her abdomen. Dazed, she looked at Shinji through what seemed to be a curtain of blood.

'_Will you...kill me, Shinji?'_ She wondered.

Shinji looked down at the young girl. Half of his mind told him to grab the nearest piece of wreckage and crush her skull, while the other half, more insistent, called for him to pick her up and hold her, begging for forgiveness. He continued to look at her, fury and want intermingling and battling for supremacy within his heart, which writhed in pain with the struggle.

"You killed me." Her accusatory words whispered, and Shinji finally broke down. Dropping his head to her bosom again, he released her arms and encircled her back, crying again.

"Asuka." He croaked. "Don't hate me...I beg you. Don't push me away...I can't take any more of this. I'll...do anything you want...just...help me."

"No."

Her eyes burned with a steady anger, boring into Shinji's very soul. "I can't be satisfied; not by you, not by anyone. I'm always alone...everybody abandons me in the end. All I have is myse;f." As the words escaped her mouth, their truth hit her like a sledgehammer, and her bravado evaporated.

_'I'm really alone. I don't want this, but I can't be loved, because I can't love.'_ Shinji thought.

Fate had ripped love away from her, just as it had ripped her mother away. Now, all she has is the shattered remains of a boy who had failed and abandoned her, just like everyone else.

"I can't take this..." She whispered. Shinji's hand grabbed hers. "You don't have to, Asuka!" He said, with bleak pain evident in his eyes. "You have to let people into your heart. Then...you can be happy. You...just have to trust them...trust me...I'm begging you; don't abandon me..." Her shoulders sagged. "Damn it, Shinji." She said, reaching up again to touch his cheek. Shinji brushed her hand with his. "I'll...I'll be here, Asuka. If you need me...I swear I won't abandon you..."

"Promises...oaths...they're all so pointless; everything is so pointless. I can't trust you with my heart."

Shinji drooped, his tears flowing more freely now. He sat up and looked sadly down at Asuka. "I have no one except you, Asuka." He said. "I need you, so please..."

"You need me?"

"Yes! YES! Asuka, I...I need you...no one else would do...I need you to not hate me, because I have no one except you..."

"Then...where were you?"

"Huh?"

"Where were you when I nearly died against the Fourteenth Angel? Where were you when I was all alone against the Fifteenth Angel?" Her voice steadily rising, along with her suppressed anger. "Where were you when I was torn to pieces while still alive?" She yelled, her words now choked with tears. "How the hell do you dare ask me to be with you, when you've never held me and had never been by _my_ side?" By now, she was screaming, and tears streamed down her cheeks. "You have no right to ask for anything!" She sobbed. "I hate you...Shinji Ikari...I really hate you, you god damned idiot."

In the red ocean, a head appeared, and a figure floated towards shore. It washed up onto the beach, revealing a man of perhaps 20 or 30, with a mop of brown hair and rectangular glasses. He lay face down, completely still, for a minute or two, and then twitched, his head valiantly attempting to lift itself up, but failing. A few seconds passed, and with a groan, he flipped onto his side. The man groaned and, finally summoning enough strength, sat up swearing loudly. He shook the sand from his cream-colored shirt and pants.

"Damn it." He grumbled. "I feel like shit."

"Don't we all?" A voice from behind him said.

The man turned around to see another man sitting on the sand. He had long hair and wore a plain white T-shirt and jeans.

"This sure feels like hell, eh?" He said good-naturedly.

"Shi-Shigeru Aoba?" The first man asked, rubbing his eyes. "Damn it! What the hell happened?"

Aoba shrugged. "I'd say Third Impact." He looked around, and then gave a low whistle. "Damn! Not a pretty sight to wake up to."

The first man, Makoto Hyuga, looked in the direction his colleague was looking at and jumped. "Damn." He said. "Is this some sort of insane nightmare?"

Aoba chuckled. "I pinched myself already. This is no nightmare, man. This is the _real_ Evangelion Unit 01. Looks a lot scarier up close, doesn't it?"

Hyuga laughed drily. "We _worked_ with that thing, Shigeru. You're not _scared_, are you?"

Aoba turned considerably redder. "Well..." He stammered. "I was just wandering..."

"You're scared man. Admit it."

"Shut up, Hyuga, before I tell everyone that's back about..._Major Katsuragi_? Hmm?"

"Bastard! You wouldn't dare!"

"What will you do to stop me?"

"The fact that you're approaching thirty and have _never_ had a girlfriend?"

"You can't blackmail me, buddy; everyone knows that I'll be a hundred-year old virgin. What about you, my friend? You're pretty old, too. Do you want me to tell the world that you're a thirty-year old man who likes to read shojo?"

"What the hell, man? You read _shojo?_ You're a damned pervert!"

Both Nerv lieutenants turned around to see a dark haired, muscular boy march up to them, followed by a more lightly-built boy with mousy brown hair.

"Hey...Touji Suzuhara and Kensuke Aida, right?" Hyuga asked. Aoba snickered. "Changing the subject...to cover up your embarrassing facts, eh?" He whispered.

Hyuga silently ribbed him hard, and continued. "I thought you'd all gone." He said.

Touji shrugged. "I don't know." He said. "I guess there's too many things that have happened here for me to really leave it. Kensuke? KENSUKE!"

The other boy was running furiously towards the downed Eva. "Now don't you be a dumbass, Kensuke!" Touji called. "Your not thinking...damn! You're a real otaku, aren't you?"

Eva-01 lay in shallow waters, and Kensuke splashed through the LCL with total disregard for his clothes.

"Hikari's gonna be mad, Kensuke!" Touji yelled. "She don' like LCL all over clothes!" Unable or refusing to hear his friend, the obsessed boy climbed up Unit 01's arm and raced over it, slipping and stumbling on the hard surface.

Hyuga sighed and got up half-heartedly. "I'll go get him." He said.

"Ouch! Scheiße!" Asuka yelled, blowing on her burnt finger. Shinji looked around.

"Asuka, are you okay?" He asked. "You ought to be more careful with the fire."

Holding the blistered digit, she turned to glare at him. "Don't tell me what to do, Shinji Ikari." She snapped. "You're the one who's promised to protect me, so get to _work_!"

"Asuka, I said I'd protect you, not be your manservant." Shinji sighed, the remark earning him a smack on the head.

"Shut up." She said, blushing slightly. Turning back to gathering firewood, Shinji secretly smiled. The past week had been stressful; the shattered remains of the once bustling city were now deserted and almost all convenience stores were been completely empty. There were only a few people about, and they were all too busy staying alive to be of company.

"Well now, what do we have here?" A heavyset man asked softly, as he peered over a collapsed wall near the camp which Asuka and Shinji had made. "A neat lil' camp with food, firewood and plenty of water. It looks like we're in luck."

His companion, a thin, wiry man, snickered quietly. "They don't seem to have a defense, either; a real easy nut to crack." Another member of the group silently tiptoed up.

"All right, guys." He said. "What are we waiting for? This'll be just like every other time we'd raided camps." The first man spat on the ground.

"What the hell...what the fuck's even going on here? One minute, I'm sitting in a bar, and the next thing I know, I'm in some twilight zone and then I end up _here_."

The newcomer shrugged. "This world does have certain advantages." He commented. "Remember that little girl we were playing around with last night? Now she was damned nice-looking; not something scumbags like _us_ usually get to screw."

The second man snickered again. "Nice n' tight n' screaming, just how I like 'em; a virgin, too. We didn't get to _rape_ before this."

The third man looked thoughtfully over to the camp. "It would have been nice if you hadn't thought of stabbing the little bitch." He said. "We could've kept her for a real long time. She wasn't much more than fourteen or fifteen, you know."

The first man chuckled. "I've been here before. There's an even prettier redhead in there. A little European beauty, not much older than the girl we did last night, and damned tasty-looking. Let's not waste time now, shall we? After all, we need to repopulate the planet after this disaster."

All three men shook with suppressed laughter, and the wiry man slithered away towards the small camp.

A loud shout echoed through the skeletal remains of the city. Dropping his cans, Shinji Ikari dashed outside, rounded a corner, and came face to face with a massive man in a tattered JSSDF uniform. He had Asuka in his arms, easily lifting her off the ground. The man froze in surprise as he saw Shinji, and then yelped as Asuka bit down on his beefy left arm and slammed a foot back into his crotch. Shocked back to alertness, Shinji charged at the man, who dropped Asuka in an attempt to both dislodge her and counter Shinji's furious blow. Asuka rolled aside, gasping in pain, and Shinji's fist connected with the soldier's solar plexus. The air burst out of the man's lungs, and he staggered back, gasping in shocked surprise. Shinji followed his first blow with the edge of his palm, driving it into the man's Adam's apple. With an annoyed growl, the man grabbed Shinji by the shirtfront and hurled him against the store's wall. Stars exploded in front of his eyes, and he slid down, stunned and dazed. Behind him, Asuka screamed again as the wiry rapist grabbed her by the hair and swiped het feet out from under her. A well aimed elbow in the face, however, shattered the man's nose ridge, causing him to howl in pain. With adrenaline surging through her blood, Asuka picked up a massive chunk of concrete and brought it down hard on the top of the man's head. A sickening crunch resounded through the shattered streets, and the first man whirled around, dropping a bleeding Shinji from his hand. He stared, open mouthed with horror, as Asuka dashed from the corpse of his companion and hammered the chunk of rubble home on his forehead. He, too, dropped down, his mashed brains strewn about the scene of the fight.

Unknown to anyone in the ruined fortress city, the CB-X60D Divinity Gundam was hovering high overhead. The camera in the back of the mobile suit's head was zoomed in on the small camp which Asuka and Shinji had created, while the cameras in the machine's eyes and forehead were monitoring various points along the shore. The two former Evangelion pilots were completely unaware of it, but they had divine protection in this post-apocolyptic world.

The rain splattered gently against the collection of fallen concrete blocks that was Shinji and Asuka's home. Outside, the collection of pots and pans clinked as rainwater pooled inside them. Asuka sat huddled in a corner of the tiny shelter, her teeth chattering, wrapped in a heavy blanket, which was surprisingly still whole even after Third Impact. Shinji had fished the blanket from the wreckage of a nearby department store a few days earlier. Shinji wrapped his arms about his body, trying to stay warm.

"Idiot." Asuka complained. "Why didn't you grab another blanket or something?" Shinji looked away, smiling.

"Sorry, Asuka." He said as a matter of routine.

"Dummkoph...I should have known."

"I'm sorry, Asuka."

"Whatever..."

A loud growl came from Asuka's stomach. Shinji looked up.

"Hungry?" He asked, holding out a steaming can of instant noodles and a pair of disposable chopsticks.

"_Mmmph_-WHAT THE HELL IS THIS? Where did you get thi-it's hot!" She exclaimed. Shinji smiled, and moved aside to reveal the small can in which he'd been keeping a fire burning. He held out the container.

"Here; eat it while it's still warm."

Asuka reached eagerly for the noodles. "Not bad, Third Child." She said. "It's good." Shinji moved the can between their bodies and sat looking at Asuka's huddled form. Asuka ignored him and wolfed down her food, occasionally wincing as she moved her shoulder the wrong way.

"Uh...don't choke..."

Asuka paused to swallow. "I never told you, but I actually liked your cooking. It's one of the few things that actually made you bearable. I'd gotten used to coming home and having my food laid out in front of me."

"I...was happy." Shinji said, poking the fire. "I...had a home to come back to, people to care for...somewhere where I was welcome. I was getting to rebuild my life. Until I realized that I was alone again...Touji was in the hospital, you...were drawing away from everyone around you. Kaji was-"

"Don't you dare say it!" Asuka yelled.

"I'm sorry."

"God damn it, so am I; and Misato..."

"Was too wrapped up in her own grief...and then she was always gone from home, trying to find the truth behind Nerv and the Eva."

"We were all alone, and _you_ didn't even _try_ to help."

Shinji stirred the remaining noodles with a spoon. "I'm sorry."

Asuka chewed slowly, stirring her food around. "I...can't hate you. I just _can't_ hate you for leaving me. In the end...I still can't just push you away. I still give a damn."

"Thank you." Shinji smiled.

"Shut up." Asuka quietly growled. "I wish I could hate you."


	112. Crimson Beast

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 112**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

The JSSDF commander bit down hard on his cigar. On the radar screen, hostile forces were moving in from all sides.

"Deploy the Jet-VTOLs for a hit and run attack along the coastline." He said. "Arrange the tanks in a defense line, and get any civilians that can fire a gun and arm them. Send the police out to help with repelling infantry."

The commander chewed the end of his cigar with a grim smile.

"And don't forget the surprise. Stuff it with everything you can find. Let's make her maiden sortie a spectacular one."

A stream of missiles and shells sped from the jagged remains of the city and dashed towards the approaching fleet. On board, AA batteries broke out in a frenzy of deafening fire as the ships moved apart in evasive maneuvers. From the main carrier, a squadron of fighters launched, while ship-to-air missiles leapt from the battleships and destroyers. Flashes of light lit the air as fire from each side struck home. A destroyer's bridge shattered in an orange ball of flame, the Jet-VTOL that fired burst apart as AA rounds turned it into a beehive of crumpled metal. Tank main guns roared as they rumbled through the woods on the coast, and a TOW rocket launcher fired several fast bursts into a small, nearby vessel, turning the craft's broad side into a mountain of smoldering steel fragments.

Overhead, the Chinese MiGs swept down, machine guns chattering. Unable to counter the diving attack performed by the MiGs, the JSSDF VTOLs fell back, spitting machine cannon rounds and flares.

"The air defense force is falling back, sir." A young operator called. "They can't counter the MiGs! Eighteen percent of our VTOL gunships have been destroyed!"

The commander gritted his teeth. _'Even those cursed Evangelion Units can't repel an attack by highly maneuverable MiG-35s.'_

The MiG squadron dived, as one, and locked on to several straggling gunships, machine guns and missiles at the ready.

A shaft of pure, brilliant white light blazed across the battlefield, and the fighters were instantly incinerated by it. Globs of molten metal splattered all over the field, and the white-hot remains crashed, in showers of sparks, onto the ground.

"Ah...what the hell? Sir, all the enemy aircraft have been shot down!" The operator squeaked. "It-_it's an Eva_!"

Heads snapped to the screen. Frantically, the operator called up an image of the rebuilt Evangelion Unit 02, kneeling on one knee with the NERV-X20P positron sniper rifle poised. Asuka shifted the rifle down towards the main carrier, and fired again. The blood-red sea hissed and burst into foamy steam as the beam scythed through the air above it and hit the carrier. The stream of light smashed right through, slicing it apart, along with a battleship right behind the carrier. The sea roared, as if in pain, and retreated from the blistering beam. As the waves merged again, the glowing ends of the carrier sank quickly, raising a cloud of steam as they cooled, creating a gigantic vortex that pulled lifeboats and support vessels off course and into a confused mob around the destroyed battleship. For a moment, the ship was silent, most of her superstructure having been melted away. As she drifted into the disorganized fleet, however, sparks raced across her mutilated deck, and the ship blew up in a spectacular fireball, throwing burning men, equipment, small tugboats and fragments of metal flying into the air. Deciding that following up with the attack was not wise; the survivors began to retreat.

"Oh no, you don't." The JSSDF commander muttered. "Launch the TRIDENT Land Cruiser!" He roared. "And tell the Eva to hold fire!"

Asuka laid the spent sniper rifle down on the monorail and reached for her sword. Just then, however, Misato's voice broke over the intercom. "Hold your fire, Asuka. The JSSDF wants to turn some new secret weapon loose on the survivors. Just retreat now."

"No, I will _not_!" Asuka declared angrily. "I can finish them off perfectly fine by myself!"

"Let the JSSDF show off." Misato said. "If you want, you can stay and do some reconnaissance on whatever they're going to use." She smiled inwardly and added. "Asuka, show them how Nerv does things when their secret weapon fucks up."

Catching her meaning, Asuka smiled back with just as much malice. "Understood, Major."

With an earth-shaking rumble, the TRIDENT emerged out of a hidden cove at the mouth of the harbor and clambered towards the ships. The remains of the fleet were now caught between a rock and a hard place, trapped by two very powerful machines, both of which were intent on destroying it. Asuka, out of a desire to mess things up for the much despised JSSDF, assumed a defensive stance, silently watching as the fleet quickly fell back towards her with detached interest. The dinosaur-like TRIDENT began to spew missiles from launchers on its back, and a tiny machine gun spat equally unimpressive rounds from under its chin. Asuka watched from Unit 02 as the monstrous piece of machinery tramples through the bay's crimson waters and chewed a torpedo boat into scrap with a blistering barrage. The three remaining destroyers split apart and churned through the water, firing as they broke formation, while torpedoes hissed through the water, exploding against the T-RIDENT-T's legs. Rockets shattered another torpedo boat's hull, sending men and equipment flying into the air as a flurry of missiles decapitated the TRIDENT, the head bouncing clean off of its neck, and pairs of torpedoes severed its knee joints, sending the overweight machine crashing off balance, pitching head first into the water, next to a pool of corpses and sunken hulls.

"Hey, Misato." Asuka said. "It looks like the JSSDF _did_ mess up. Should I move in?"

In the bay, the last three destroyers pounded the inert hull of the TRIDENT. Bits and pieces of dark blue armor flew in all directions, and craters dotted the machine's exterior as smoke cleared.

"Why the hell isn't your Eva doing anything?" The JSSDF commander screamed through the phone.

"You told us to hold fire, didn't you?" Misato replied smoothly, but finally, as her professional sense nagged at her, she sighed. "Fine, Asuka, rescue their machine and its pilot."

A gigantic sword twirled through the air, before being caught by Unit 02's waiting palm.

"Guten morgen, everyone." Asuka said happily. "I'm _back_!"

With a screech of protesting metal, the broken end of the destroyer dislodged and splashed into the bay. Evangelion Unit 02 casually tossed the other end into another destroyer, and then sliced deep into the last one with its sword, opening the ship's hull wide like a gutted fish. In the water, men splashed and struggled as they tried to escape from the massive vortexes of water that the crimson machine created as it strode through the bay. Most failed, and drowned, bloated bodies littered the Eva's wake.

In the entry plug, Asuka flexed her body, stiff from the boredom of the last three years. The Eva that she was using somehow seemed creaky and slower than she remembered, but her indomitable spirit was satisfied.

"That was good exercise, Misato." She commented. The older woman sighed in resignation.

"Asuka, if you don't learn to act more lady-like, then all the good men will run away from you, and you'll never get married."

"MISATO!" Asuka screeched.

Misato smiled evilly as she continued. "And your secret crush will be too scared to kiss you again."

Asuka exploded into an outraged torrent of German, out of which Shinji could distinctly make out the word 'dummkoph' used in half a dozen different places.

Maya Ibuki leaned back and observed the scene with general satisfaction as she thought to herself. '_Their wounds are healing; they're a family again.'_

Suddenly, one of the sensors blared out an alarm. Almost immediately, Unit 02 pitched forwards as an orange ball of flame erupted from its back. A moment later, the thundering shockwave sent a thundering clap through everyone's eardrums.

"What the-ASUKA!" Misato yelled as Unit 02 fell to one knee and collapsed into the murky waters.

"The A.T. Field just went down!" Maya warned. "We're losing contact with the Eva's systems; I think it's a rejection!"

"But what was that explosion?" Misato demanded.

"Armor-piercing high-explosive shell; it hit right after the A.T. Field failed!" Hyuga shouted.

"Asuka!" Shinji yelled. On the screen, Unit 02 remained inert. The communications system was deafeningly silent.

"Heavy damage to mechanical components on Unit 02's back. Communications are down; and..." Aoba stopped suddenly. "Oh shit! Neither plug ejection nor motor control is responding to my system sweep!"

"What does that mean?" Shinji demanded.

"It's probably too damaged; in addition, power management is functioning at only 41.5% of normal output due to a hit on the umbilical cable's power transfer system. Eva Unit 02's power supply has been reduced by 52.4% to account for the damaged components. The Magi are unanimously suggesting immediate withdraw of the Eva and replacement of the control unit block."

"Object approaching!" Hyuga snapped. "It's a-"

He stopped in amazement.

"What?" Misato demanded.

"Jet Alone...?" Hyuga sounded puzzled. "There's no radiation or any sign of nuclear fission within the core, though...wait a moment...let me try another scan..."

Misato glanced at the monitor and whispered. "Asuka, get the hell up already!"

"It hurts..." Asuka whimpered, it felt like there was a red-hot iron pressing down on her back. She hugged her knees and gasped in pain. All around her, Eva's cockpit displays crackled and hissed with static, and her body was strangely heavy, as if she didn't have enough energy to move it.

"Mama, help me." She implored to the dead metal all around her. "I'm scared."

She tried again to move the Eva. The controls were frozen. Overhead, a myriad of error messages blinked ominously at her. _'Error in the operation system...life support has been reduced to 10% of normal power...Eva set in Gain mode...auto-ejection error...unable to operate the communication system, 98.2% chance of hardware failure...what's going on?' _Asuka thought, wincing as a fresh wave of discomfort raked her body. _'This damn heap of junk is broken...'_ She thought as she reached for the system log. _'Please; not the central computer, too...'_

To her relief, a small screen appeared in front of her, logging the actions of Unit 02. Asuka quickly scanned down the list of fatal system failures and located the problem.

"Heavy impact on the control unit block; TNT explosion, recorded shrapnel damage, massive overload, power supply failure..."

Something wasn't adding up.

"I've been hit with a humongous armor-piercing shell." She thought aloud. "But then, what happened to the A.T. Field?"

_"Critical A-10 Nerve Connection failure; rejection has occurred in bio-blocks D-25 through D-51; checklist unable to clear Absolute Borderline; synapses disconnected; motor neurons unable to receive instruction; pilot-machine link is unable to regain Phase-III. System Reset commencing; estimated time remaining: 00:05:30:00"_ The screen read.

Suddenly, the Eva jolted, and Asuka saw that something was lifting it off of the ground. Terror seized her mind.

'_Whatever just disabled my A.T. Field's got me; an Angel? Mama, help me! Shinji? Misato? Kira? What the hell is wrong with this thing? Why can't I fight back?'_

Shinji felt his palms moisten with sweat as the hulking Jet Alone picked up a completely limp Unit 02. Besides him, the technicians tapped away furiously at their consoles.

"The Eva is completely silent, ma'am." Aoba reported. It'll take another five minutes at the very least to reset the system and restore minimal operational capabilities.

Misato slammed her hand onto the console. "GOD DAMN IT!" She roared. "What kind of artillery shell can do this to an _Eva_?"

"A damn good shot." Hyuga said. "It hit right after the A.T. Field went down, and scythed through all of the most important systems. It's _too_ good a shot..."

"You're suspecting an information leak?"

"Yes, ma'am. The Magi were perfectly functional when we found them, but there's no guarantee that nobody's tempered with them before we got in."

Misato gritted her teeth. "And would Asuka be safe?"

"I don't know; life support's down, and if she's captured...the entry plug's cap and the plug itself ought to hold out against most conventional cutters-"

"No, they won't." Shinji said suddenly. "The emergency exit on the plug is manually opened from the outside."

Everyone's heads snapped up.

"So-" Aoba began.

"We can't let that thing get away with Unit 02." Misato said grimly. "So I guess I'll have to put away mine and Nerv's pride."

She picked up the phone and began to dial the JSSDF.

Onboard the renegade super carrier Hiroshima, which was currently at anchor in the large bay that had been created only a few miles east of Tokyo-3 during Third Impact, the general let out a genuinely amused laugh.

"Such amateurs; haven't they even _considered_ that such a massive weapon as the Jet Alone II might have the nesscary capabilities to fight the Evas?" He plopped a cigar into his mouth. "No matter; I'll have a little fun with that Eva pilot, whatever her name was, and _then_ we'll see who's boss around here. Deploy an EMP strike for the entire Tokyo-3 area."

"Aye aye, sir." His first lieutenant said. "Contact the support carrier Fuji; the EMP is to be deployed across the entire Tokyo-3 area!"

Across from the super carrier, the Fuji coasted forwards while the super carrier and her maintenance ships fell back. The Fuji's entire flight deck had been cleared and replaced with a gargantuan electromagnetic coil, which was tipped with a large dish. Energy crackled over the coil, and nodes on the dish's edge began to glow as sinister blue sparks raced over the entire apparatus. The skeleton crew of the ship quickly evacuated, rowing with fanatical strength, until they were behind the invisible boundary of the EMP beam's area of effect. Closing his eyes and vainly trying to calm his racing heart, the captain pushed the remote firing button.

Suddenly, the Jet Alone crouched down, pulled the Eva out of the water, and wrapped her with its long arms, as a strange gel oozed from spouts that lifted free of the JA's armor and soon covered both machines. A blinding beam of stark blue energy filled the air, and millions of plasma tendrils snaked through the air and ground.

Maya leapt back from her console with a terrified scream as its surface unexpectedly came to life with an indeterminable number of coiled sparks. The giant screen flickered and shut down, and everyone's hair stood on end, crackling with static.

"It's an EMP!" Aoba exclaimed as his hair buzzed into a gigantic afro. Misato hissed in pain as sparks raced across her metal cross, and Shinji tumbled to the ground. For what seemed like forever, tendrils of energy wormed their way into every nook and crevice, hissing like a bed of vipers. When the EMP field finally subsided, the entirety of Nerv's central command center was on the floor, writhing and twitching in the after-effects of electrocution.

A single bolt of that strange electricity sliced straight through Asuka's heart, and she felt it go entirely haywire. A jagged scream tore out of her mouth, and when she breathed the LCL again, her lungs felt as if they'd been set ablaze by the electricity-laden, highly conductive fluid. Vainly, she tried to beat away the snaking tentacles, but they latched on to every part of her body, encircling her in a venomous embrace and burning her skin, the wounds instantly healing as her more divine abilities protected her life. She couldn't even breathe as her long, orange-red hair shot up and about like arrows, getting into her eyes, her nose, and conducting more of the damned electricity into her A-10 Nerve clips and straight into her brain.

"OH SCHEIßE, IT HURTS!" She howled, bubbles gurgling from her parched throat. Her eyes were wide, their pupils dilated until they were only tiny dots, as she clawed at herself. The entire LCL-flooded entry plug was a superconductor for waves after waves of power that sizzled away at the girl's body.

"Jet Alone systems all check out, sir; now recalling it to the ship with Eva Unit 02."

The general pulled on his cigar. "Good, good...ready the maintenance team; we'll cut through the back and pull out the entry plug." He tossed the cigar's spent butt to the floor. "Now, let's see who's boss; the useless bootlickers in Beijing or _me_."

"Careful! I said be careful with that thing, you dumbass!" The foreman shouted. "Don't damage it!"

"How are we supposed to damage that thing?" A worker grumbled. "It's made out of solid fucking titanium!"

Suddenly, somebody screamed. "It-it-_it's moving!_" Everybody froze. The Jet Alone whirled around, bazooka in hand, as the chains about the Eva snapped like paper links. Unit 02's eyes began to glow, not the usual white, but a deep, ominous crimson.

"Call the fucking bridge, you idiots!" The foreman roared. "Get help! If that thing wakes up then it's all over!"

Suddenly, the deck was filled with the howling of what seemed like a hurricane. The next moment, every worker and sailor on the deck disappeared in puffs of pulverized blood and bone, and the Jet Alone tumbled into the water, where it quickly sank. The super carrier's island collapsed in a crumpled wreckage of steel, and red blood welled clearly under the pile of metal and glass.

With a deep groan, Unit 02 sat up. The weight shift shook the carrier's hull violently, causing Unit 02 to slide to the edge before it grabbed the elevator, tearing it halfway from the deck.

Suddenly, a loud electrical crackle filled the sky, the telltale noise generated by rapidly charging rail guns. An instant later, a blinding flash lit up the sky, as the still cloaked Divinity Gundam fired a pair of rail gun shells at one of the support ships escorting the super carrier, the pair of hyper-velocity, beam-tipped shells effortlessly slicing through the hull of the ship, cleaving it in half. The Divinity, while remaining cloaked, dispatched the other support ships in the same manner before returning to the Excalibur, which had moved to lagrange point 2, behind the Moon, in order to avoid detection.


	113. War, Peace and Kira

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 113**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

The gleaming chrome-and-scarlet armor of the Full Production Type Evangelion Unit 01 shone in the sun on the deserted island. On a nearby JSSDF destroyer, Misato stared sadly at the new machine.

"Another Evangelion Unit..." She murmured. "We don't even need one, but they built one anyway. This is going to be nothing but trouble."

"Attention, all crews, evacuate to your desiginated ships immediately." The voice of Nerv's AI; Kyoko, whom was essentially nothing more than a copy of Celestial Being's own AI; Lexi, spoke. "The activation of Evangelion Unit 01F will commence in 20 minutes."

The hydraulic pipes squealed in protest as the locks on Unit 01F were tightened to the maximum. On the shore, Nerv technicians quickly cleared up their stations and packed into hovercrafts and motor boats that sent them over the waves to the cargo vessels offshore. Cranes groaned as they levered a hulking flight pack next to Unit 01F's back. With a shuddering series of clanks, the pack was secured to the Eva's back. The cranes moved back rapidly, and the ground began to rumble as a masive crawler, originally intended to carry space shuttles, slowly hauled the Eva and all of its activation appendages down a mammoth gravel path.

Shinji Ikari sat in the entry plug with a melancholy nostalgia. "It still smells like Ayanami...like mother." He mused.

The controls were sleeker, the entire plug's inside was covered with holographic and LCD displays, rendering a full panoramic view of the surroundings. Shinji disliked it. It made him feel exposed and vulnerable, as if suspended in the air for everyone to see.

"120 seconds until activation." Kyoko's voice intoned. Shinji uncurled and held the control handles.

"Checklist items are all clear; Unit 01F is ready for activation." One of the technicians reported.

"Making all preparations and clearing the activation checklist, as well as readying power prior to the actual activation..." Maya said to herself. "It cut the Eva's launch time by 240 seconds."

Misato glanced at her. "What do you think this Eva is for?"

"War." Maya said. "Everything about this rebuilt Eva 01 is made for combat...the lighter, more efficient armor, the stronger muscles, all of the weaponry affixed to the armor and the docking ports for rapidly switching field equipment...it's just a machine of war."

Misato crossed her arms and gazed steadily at the gleaming Evangelion. "We don't need these things anymore." She said, her voice dropping to a nearly inaudible whisper. "The Gundams are vastly superior."

"30 seconds to activation." Kyoko said.

Maya bent down to her keyboard and began to initiate Unit 01F's central systems.

Light rippled through the dark LCL, and Shinji breathed in deeply as his nerves tingled. Rainbow ripples laced with crackles of electricity surged in, replacing the displays. In a moment, everything returned, along with a baffling amount of text and statistics. A flickering orange crosshair spun into place in front of him, and everything settled into place all around the screens.

"Evangelion Unit 01F has been activated." Kyoko reported, only for her voice to suddenly switch to combat mode a few seconds later. "Warning, incoming high speed object!"

"What?" Maya asked, even as the brightly glowing, blood red form of the CB-X60D Divinity Gundam streaked towards Evangelion Unit 01F, the angel-winged mobile suit stopping directly in front of the Full Production Model Evangelion.

"Wow." The voice of Kira Yamato echoed through the speakers in the command center as well as those in the entry plug of Evangelion Unit 01F. "What a piece of shit."

The TRIDENT Type Alpha quickly dashed forwards over the rocky ground, speeding towards the activation site of Evangelion Unit 01F. In the cockpit of the TRIDENT, Mana Kirishima gritted her teeth and tugged at the tubes attached to her body. "I don't really like this new cockpit." She was on her hands and knees, riding the thing, for God's sake!

A stream of positrons screamed through the air from the Type Alpha's chest emitter, only to strike uselessly against the Divinity's glowing GN field. The machine stopped glowing and stumbled backwards, and Mana squeezed another shot off at the machine, which had now begun to generate its own A.T. Field. The beam ricocheted from the translucent orange panes with a glassy clink, and one layer of the Divinity's A.T. Field shattered into crystal-like shards.

"That's an odd A.T. Field..." She muttered, and an instant later, her TRIDENT violently shuddered, and she yelped in pain, holding up her head, which had crashed against the control panel. "Shit!" A couple of the TRIDENT's body shields had been blasted off by a pair of shots from the twin multi-phase cannons mounted in the Divinity's chest.

"You can't hope to beat a god." Kira smirked, even as a trio of the angelic machines, one colored in silver-and-gold, the second colored in blue-and-red, and the third colored in blue-and-white landed on either side of the Divinity. "It's about time you three got here." Kira smirked as the Divinity turned to look at the three new arrivals.

"Sorry, Dad." The voice of Kira's daughter; Aoi Yamato, sheepishly spoke from the cockpit of the blue-and-red colored mobile suit.

"Well, if you and Allister hadn't been making out in the hanger, we wouldn't be this late." Akira Yamato, Kira's son and Aoi's brother, scoffed from the blue-and-white machine.

"Both of you, stop bickering!" Kira scolded, even as the Divinity blazed with a red light and surged forward to sever both of the TRIDENT's legs along with its back-mounted missile launchers, before then continuing on and severing Evangelion Unit 01F's legs, disabling both machines in less than two and a half seconds. "We're in a warzone!"

Fllay Allister watched in horror as the ZGMF-X13A Providence Gundam, which she knew to be piloted by ZAFT Commander Rau Le Crueset, aimed at the Dominion's escape shuttle and fired. She couldn't believe he had done that. To her, he was like her father, and it blinded her to his real intentions. Nonetheless, she trusted Kira Yamato to save her once again.

As time slowed and the searing green lance of energy inched towards the escape pod, it dawned on her that she had always been depending on Kira during her time on the Archangel. He had never failed her, he had never failed them, all of them on the ship. He kept them alive. He kept her alive.

She was right. Kira made it in time, blocking the deadly energy blast with the shield mounted on the right arm of his new ZGMF-X10A Freedom Gundam. It looked very much like the GAT-X105 Strike Gundam, so much that Fllay never doubted who was piloting it. She stared out of the window. She knew it was wishful thinking, but still, she hoped that she could see Kira. She knew he saw her. She just knew it.

Then, a strange feeling passed through her. A shout came from the front, from those who were paying more attention to the battle. One of those weird individual pods, which Fllay suddenly realized were called DRAGOON units, was directly above them, preparing to fire. She knew that Kira wouldn't make it this time.

She realized then that this was retribution. She had escaped punishment the first time, but her just deserts would not leave her alone until she had paid for all her crimes. She was ready, though. She wasn't about to deny that she was in the wrong.

Even though Kira wasn't fast enough, another Gundam, one which resembled the GAT-X303 Aegis Gundam, but was in fact the ZGMF-X19A Infinite Justice Gundam, under the command of Celestial Being, was fast enough. The Infinite Justice swooped in, sweeping its physical shield over the escape pod as easily as swinging an umbrella over a head. Everyone stared at the machine, for it was blazing with a brilliant red light and leaving glowing afterimages in its wake. Right then, Fllay thought that if she didn't apologise to Kira face to face, she would not rest in peace for the rest of her days.

This gave her resolve, and when the escape pod docked with the Archangel, she ran to the bridge, intending to talk to Kira immediately. Unfortunately, they were still in a middle of a battle, and she found herself sent away.

She was too tired to protest, even when the entire crew of the Dominion ended up in Archangel's cells with her. She knew it was only a precaution. The captain was preoccupied, and the rest of the crew was just following the rules. It didn't matter. She would soon get to see Kira again.

A few months after the war had ended, Fllay Allister entered the kitchen. The first thing she saw was a flash of light yellow hair as the Head Representative turned to look at her. Her heart was ready to sink. At least, until she saw the Representative's escort.

She didn't notice him at first, because Cagalli's bright yellow hair had overshadowed his brown. But as soon as she saw, she knew. Her heart almost stopped, her pulse slowing so much she could have passed for a corpse, before restarting with enough force to crush her lungs. She tried to pull out a chair and sit down while projecting a clam image, but her excitement betrayed her. Her movements were jerky.

"Tea?" Nelia, Fllay's housekeeper asked, and without waiting for an answer, she placed a cup and saucer in front of the red-haired girl. Fllay absently nodded in thanks, her eyes still on Kira.

Kira hadn't even looked her in the eye once since she came in. He was deliberately talking only to Cagalli. Fllay felt the same feeling she had the last time she saw Kira so happy with the other girl.

Cagalli ended Kira's rant with a pat on his head. "Cool it, little brother. Right now, we're here for a reason." The last part was not only directed to Kira, but to Fllay as well. Fllay's temper flared up again, but was suddenly quelled when she recalled what Cagalli had just said.

"Wait...he's your _brother_?" Fllay asked, shocked. Now that she knew it though, she could see the resemblances between the two.

"Yes." Cagalli answered shortly. "But the reason we're here is to hear your side of the story. Tell us, in short, why you passed nuclear technology to the Earth Alliance."

Fllay glanced at Kira, who was determined to avoid meeting her eyes as much as possible. With a heart rapidly plummeting through the floorboards, she told the twins the main points of her story.

"I was taken prisoner by ZAFT, as you both know. Commander Rau Le Crueset gave me that disc with the information, and he told me as soon as it reached the Earth Alliance, it would end the war. I thought...I thought it was a proposal for a peace treaty. I never knew it was nuclear technology." Fllay's eyes began tearing up as she thought about all those she might have been responsible for killing.

"It's not your fault." Cagalli said, only for Kira to suddenly interrupt her.

"We have to go, Cagalli. They'll notice you're not around sooner or later. And I can't stay as your bodyguard for too long. We found out what we came here for." Kira's eyes were focused outside the house. It was a ruse, although a convincing one. He couldn't bear to stay around Fllay when she was crying, knowing that he couldn't help her.

"Alright." Cagalli agreed, and as she got up, she spoke to Fllay again. "I guess your lawyer would be around to see you soon. Until then, please just stay in the house."

Fllay nodded and watched as the two left, she noticed that Kira didn't look back even once. She left her cold, untouched tea on the table and went back into her room.

Kira started the car and headed back to the Parliament House in silence. Cagalli tried to fill it in with some conversation, hoping that it would ease her brother's tension.

"I don't know how to appoint a judge for this case, Kira. If it happens to be a Coordinator, and if she is convicted, the Atlantic Federation will complain that the verdict was biased. If it happens to be a Natural, and if she is acquitted, the PLANTs will say that she was let off easy."

If Kira had heard her, he gave no sign, his entire mind was focused on the road ahead of him.

"So I guess I'll have to do it myself then." Cagalli continued.

That broke Kira's stupor. "What?" He asked, his eyes wide.

"I said, I'll have to judge this case myself. There is still far too much tension and rivalry between ZAFT and the Atlantic Federation to trust either of them not to bitch and moan about the verdict. People are still really pissed off about the actions taken during the war. And since I was originally a Natural, and now an Ultimate Coordinator myself, I guess I'll just do it myself. Don't worry, I won't be hard on her."

"Cagalli, you don't have to do this for me." Kira said, the expression on his face unreadable.

"Who's doing it for you? I'm just going to be a fair judge, that's all."

Kira subsided back into his seat. If he disapproved of his sister's plans, he didn't show it. Cagalli continued talking as though Kira's sudden outburst never happened.

"And I guess if you want Fllay to win the case, you'll need a lawyer who isn't prejudiced, who is persuasive and logical, and can convince even Coordinators that she is innocent." Cagalli rattled off the list of requirements, hoping that Kira would get the hint. He didn't, and Cagalli sighed. This was going to hit him hard.

"I think the best person to do this would be Lacus." Cagalli said, bracing herself for the explosion.

"WHAT?" Kira screeched. "You must be joking! How could you ask Lacus..."

"It's for the best, Kira!" Cagalli replied, covering her ears. "And keep your eyes on the road."

Kira obeyed, although he was still quite upset. "Do you think Lacus is going to agree to it? Do you think I'm going to agree to it?"

"Whether you agree to it or not isn't the issue here." Cagalli replied. "Whether Lacus agrees to it, and I suspect she will, is what matters."

"But still..." Kira trailed off, seeing Cagalli's point.

"If Fllay is to be proven innocent to everyone, it will be necessary. We know, but the PLANTs needs to know and believe the truth. Stop worrying, Kira." Cagalli said in reply to Kira's dumbfounded expression. "Lacus can handle it."

Kira decided not to answer, his mind on the pink-haired princess. He scowled, already thinking of her reaction to the request, and somehow, the guilty feeling he got while visiting Fllay multiplied by a thousand times.

Representative Cagalli Yula Athha gave a cold look to the ZAFT officer sitting in front of her. "I must apologize, Colonel Walther, but I'm afraid that I cannot entertain your request. The Orb Union is a neutral nation, and I will not compromise that. Now, if you'll kindly get the fuck out of my office, I have another appointment. I will see you another time, Colonel."

The stiff-looking man on the other side of her desk wore a barely concealed scowl, due to Cagalli's divine abilities, he hadn't actually heard her more vulgar language, but even so, he got the message. He stood up, and the two assistants standing by the door escorted him out of the office.

Once the door slammed shut, Cagalli once again utilized some of her more divine abilities, this time to make the ZAFT Colonel's head explode for no apparent reason, sending crimson blood and hot brain matter splattering the escorting assistants and guards, and the walls of the hallway. To everyone's surprise, however, before the body could even begin to fall to the floor, the ZAFT colonel's head regenerated. After releaving her stress somewhat, Cagalli dropped her facade and rubbed her golden eyes. She already had enough problems to deal with regarding Onogoro, and now both ZAFT and the Atlantic Federation were pestering her in regards to the trial.

Meanwhile, in the land which had previously been the country of Spain, the CB-X60D Divinity Gundam, which had once again assumed the size of an average human and was utilizing its holoshroud to take on the appearance of its pilot, glared angrly at a pair of muscle-bound men.

"Vegeta, what does the scouter say about his power level?" The first man asked, turning to face the man behind him and to his left.

"It's over 9000!" Vegeta roared, as he removed his scouter and crushed it in his fist.

"What, 9000!" Nappa screamed. "There's no way that can be right! Can it!"

"I think it's right." Kira smirked. "After all, I am a god."

"Why you little...!" Nappa roared as he charged at Kira. "You're no match for me! I don't care what you are!"

"Why do I still put up with this shit." Kira muttered, even as he effortlessly dodged a flurry of punches and kicks. After nearly a full minute of simple dodging, Kira decided to end the fight. Nappa and Vegeta both stared in confusion as a pair of angelic wings suddenly appeared on the amethyst-eyed man's back, even as a halo formed over hs head and his eyes began to glow.

In the blink of an eye, the angel-style wings swung underneath Kira's arms, and an instant later, two tactical forty-kiloton nuclear cruise missiles shot out from the relatively small spaces in between the wings, both missiles taking off with a flash of exhaust.

Kira allowed a sadistic grin to cross his lips as both of the nuclear missiles slammed into the two men in front of him, both of the projectiles detonating almost simultaneously as they slammed into the strange men. There was a blinding flash of light, and then everything was enveloped in a pair of massive nuclear fireballs, the intense heat from the twin nuclear blasts completely vaporizing anything within 20 miles. Kira Yamato, and his Divinity Gundam, however, were left completely unharmed, thanks to his more god-like powers.

Even before the explosions had begun to fade, the Divinity Gundam had once more assumed its normal height, take to the air, transformed into its mobile armor mode and sped away.

"What is it you all think we should be fighting against to end all of these senseless conflicts?" Kira Yamato's voice calmly asked through the Excalibur's intercom system as he stood in the massive main confrence room. "Whatever it is. It's time we started fighting against it."

"What is it you all believe in?" Lacus Clyne asked as she stood beside Kira. "What is it that we should be fighting for now? We must understand that the people of Earth are our brothers and sisters." As the pink-haired beauty finished speaking, the throng of crewmembers which had assembeled in the confrence room erupted.

"We are led by a group of gods!" Shinn Asuka said. "Why the hell should we simply sit back and agree to co-exist with the humans on Earth when they've tried to kill us all on countless occasions!"

"Shinn's right!" Lunamaria Hawke yelled, slamming her palm on the table. "We have come under attack so many times, that even I am beginning to wonder if we shouldn't simply eliminate the Earth's population and repopulate the planet ourselves!"

"Both of you, be quiet!" Kira ordered, glaring as Shinn and Luna.

"Fuck you, Kira!" The two retorted in unison.

Lacus, determined not to lose control of the situation, simply continued speaking. "Possibly, we can exist without having to fight. but many of us have chosen to fight. But, for what reason?" Everyone instantly stopped arguing and turned to look at the blue-eyed beauty as she continued. "To protect something? Protect what? Ourselves? The future?" She asked, even as everyone silently listened to her. "If we kill people to protect ourselves and this future, then what sort of future is it, and what will we have become? There is no future for those who have died. And what of those who did the killing? Is happiness to be found in a future that is grasped with bloodstained hands? Is that the truth?"

"We still haven't fixed the damage to the timelines." Athrun Zala spoke up after a moment of silence.

"I'm fully aware of that." Kira replied as the lights dimmed and the holographic display in center of the the table lit up, projecting the image of what could be best described as a massive gun barrel that was tapered towards the center at the front end, with a large sphere behind the barrel, and finally, behind the sphere, was a collection of six pylons which jutted out from the hull.

"This is what we will use to repair the timelines." Kira said. "The Celestial Being Temporal Weapon Ship. 1,240 meters long, with height of 310 meters and a beam of 299 meters. The Temporal Weapon Ship is a device which is capable of rewriting history. But, instead of going back into the past and effecting some sort of change, this ship fires a high power energy beam which removes the target completely from the timeline. The result is a temporal shock wave which spreads out through space, changing everything it passes over to the way it would have been if the target had never existed to begin with. Hence, if you fired the main weapon at Germany, then the world would literally vanish and be replaced by a world in which Germany had never existed."

"That's not funny, Kira!" Asuka roared.

"The Temporal Weapon Ship, like the Excalibur, is capable of operating outside space time, giving us an eternity with which to complete our task." Kira continued, ignoring the red-haired woman's outburst. "Unlike the Excalibur, however, the Temporal Weapon Ship is completely invulnerable to conventional weaponry, as long as its temporal core remains online. In the event that the temporal core has to be taken offline, however, the ship is equipped with our standard MCPS armor."

"If we're going to use this to repair the timelines." Cagalli spoke, gesturing to the holographic image of the ship. "Why is it designated as a weapon ship?"

Meanwhile, back on Earth, a few miles outside of San Diego, a large house stood near a beach, its back patio looking out at the ocean. Sitting on the patio is one Lieutenant Commander Natarle Badigruel, looking out at the rolling waves as they came in. This had always been her favorite spot in the house when she was growing up. As a young girl, she loved watching as the surf rose and fell. She paticlurily loved to watch it during this time of day, with the sun slowly sinking beneath the horizon showering the water and waves with bright reds, oranges, and violets.

"You're just worried. Well, I wouldn't worry to much about them, for if they managed to survive this long against the best ZAFT threw at them, then I am sure they are alive somewhere." Charles Badigruel, Natarle's older brother, said with a hidden smile on his face. Natarle looked over at him before nodding in agreement.

"That is true, but now the Archangel doesn't have the one thing that made it so lucky. The mobile suit known as the GAT-X105 Strike Gundam and its pilot; Kira Yamato." Natarle said with a sad smile on her face, looking at the waves once more as Charles frowned in confusion.

"One mobile suit and its pilot? How is that possible?" Charles asked, confusion lacing his voice.

"Kira and the Strike are very unique compared to anything else. For it is thanks to Kira that I'm alive right now. I can't tell you how many times he managed to single-handedly save the ship." Natarle remarked, her eyes glazing over slightly as she looked into the past, remembering those times. Charles blinked as he continued to look at his sister in confusion, wondering where this was going.

"But, what made this Kira Yamato and the Strike so special, Natarle? Explain this to me." Charles asked, trying a different approach, wondering what was with this Kira. Natarle blinked, before grinning slightly.

"Very well. Kira Yamato was a resident of the Heliopolis Colony and attended a technical college located there. He was a whiz at computer programming and was frequently asked by his Professor to help with some major projects that the Professor had been working on for Morgenroete. During the Battle, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He ended up being dragged into the cockpit of the Strike when my old Captain, Murrue Ramius, saw the need to get out of there before the entire factory blew up. Kira quickly took over and started to reprogram the Strike's entire OS for himself. Once he touched those controls, the Strike become something much more than just a mobile suit. Kira Yamato is a natural pilot and quickly got better after each battle. He was basically unstoppable compared to the ZAFT forces chasing us. The only thing that really gave him a hard time were the four other G-Weapons that been captured by ZAFT and turned against us. But even then, he came through every single time. Later, after we landed back on Earth, he personally took on Commander Andrew Waltfield, ZAFT's Desert Tiger and won! While we had other pilots on board such as, Mu La Flaga and Tolle Koenig, two of the mentioned pilots, it was always Kira who was the ship's true protector." Natarle sighed looking over at her brother with tears in her eyes. Charles looked shocked to see his tough as nails and cold-blooded sister cry. Shaking his head, Charles said nothing as he waitied for Natarle to finish her story.

"But eventually, even Kira's luck ran out, and he was killed at the Marshall Islands. Even so, he managed to do his job and got us to Alaska. Granted, we noted him as MIA, but I know that he most likely dead. Although Captain Ramius still hoped that he managed to survive and asked the nearby Orb Union to see about searching for him. When we reached Alaska we got a message that they didn't find him on the islands. They found the Strike pretty much intact, but no Kira. And I watched as the rest of the crew, including his friends, whom had volunteered to help run the ship alongside the regular crew, cry. I never did though, I was just happy to get to Alaska with the data we had gathered and the recaptured Buster. When I was transferred, I suddenly realized that I was going to miss them, and knew that I should have done more to help Kira." Natarle finished with a sad smile on her face as she looked back to her brother to see him staring at her. "Kira was only sixteen, and that is why I regret not helping him."

Little did Natarle suspect, but Kira Yamato was very much alive, and he was currently planning one of the most massive and complicated armed interventions ever undertaken by Celestial Being.


	114. Retribution for Past Sins

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 114**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

**Warning:** This chapter contains an extreme lemon, and is not suitable for anyone under the age of 18.

* * *

Each and every one of the Excalibur's hanger bays was bustling with activity. Fighters, bombers and interceptors were being outfitted with ordnance. Mobile suits and Gundams were being recharged and resupplied.

Even as the various combat machines were being prepeared for battle, down below, in the Inner Sanctum, another kind of fight was slowly, yet steadily brewing.

"Why the hell is she here, Kira?" Cagalli Yula Athha yelled, as she, along with Kira's eight other lovers glared at the stark naked figure of Fllay Allister, whom was currently restrained to one of the walls in the dungeon.

"She's here to donate her reproductive fluids and breast milk to us." Kira answered with a sadistic grin as he freed Fllay's ankles from their restraints for less than two seconds, and despite the brief period of time during which her ankles were unrestrained, it was more than long enough for Kira to slide a pair of silk panties onto her nude body. "And she will donate both of those bodily fluids for as long as we see fit, regardless of whether she wants to or not."

Fllay squeaked in surprise as she felt a thick dildo, which she quickly realized was built into the panties, slip deep into her womanhood. A few short seconds later, Kira placed a transparent bra, which had clear hoses that led into the ceiling, over her breasts.

"Computer, begin continous milking procedure." Kira said, his amethyst eyes sparkling.

"Continous milking procedure now initiating." Lexi's voice replied, and a few seconds later, Fllay let out a slight moan as she began to feel a gentle, yet incredibly pleasing suction on her breasts and within her womanhood.

"W-why are you doing this to me, Kira?" Fllay asked between quiet moans of pleasure.

"As I already told my lovers., you're here to donate your reproductive fluids and breast milk to us." Kira answered, even as he reached up above his head and pulled down a device attached to a thin clear hose.

"Open your mouth please." Kira asked. Fllay reluctently did so and Kira placed the mouthpiece into her mouth before then strapping it in place.

Following the first few days of being held captive in the Inner Sanctum, Fllay became aware of a regular pattern emerging as she was struck by an incredible sexual awakening, one which she had never expected; a desire and hunger for nursing and to have sex with her captors.

First she noticed that, unlike the first evening, she was not freely invited into the main bedroom. After being taken into the Inner Sanctum, it was made clear that she was to sleep where she was, bound to the wall in the dungeon. However, she found that she was not left out in any way. In the morning, Lexi would often come to Fllay, the holographic beauty would then put on a pumpimng bra and get the young red-haired woman to feed from her. Sometimes just from one breast, sometimes both. This was special for Fllay as she felt included and cherished by this awesome woman who would want to share these beautiful moments. Quite often, Lexi would gently raise the bed sheets, slide in next to her and lift her full breast, often leaking with milk drops forming on her nipple, to Fllay's mouth for her to feed from. During this morning feed, Lexi would often begin stroking and fingering Fllay's clitoris and vagina quickly bringing her to orgasm. Fllay found this act of close intimacy to be very erotic. Other times, Fllay could feel Lexi moving her hand upon herself and masturbating slowly, bringing herself to orgasm as she stood in front of Fllay. Then again, often Lexi would free one of Fllay's hands from its restraints, before then taking the hand and placing it firmly over her own vagina and clitoris to indicate that she clearly was looking for sexual relief as she breast fed Fllay. Despite the regular sex, Fllay had no ability to predict what the next morning might bring, but she would often be very eager, despite being bound and unable to move, hoping to hear the pad of Lexi's feet coming to her.

These morning feeds only drove Fllay wild with desire as she longed for more of this close, sexual contact. Fllay found herself thinking about the morning all day and fantasising about the next contact. It was driving her mad with sexual yearning. Fllay was not sure if Lexi intended this effect or not, but it had the effect of completely rendering Fllay unable to function without the direction and control of this amazing woman. Fllay was addicted, and she freely submitted to this amazing privilege of feeding from Lexi.

After nearly a week in captivity, Fllay was finally able to see Kira, but it was most certainly not how she expected to see him. Her sky-blue eyes widened in surprise as the heavy doors silently slid open and Kira walked in, his body completely nude, and a woman of unimaginable beauty was quickly following him.

Fllay could only stare at this woman, she had a perfect body, stood at the same 5'7" height as Kira, with long brunette hair, which was beautifully accented with blonde, red, purple and pink highlights, the soft mane cascading down her back like a silken waterfall before then trailing elegantly behind her for nearly 25 feet, while her bangs swept down over her forehead. The woman's left eye was a dark amber color, while her right eye was a deep bluish-purple. Her 32, E-cup measurements only served to enhance her already beautiful body.

The brown-haired woman smiled sweetly at Kira as they both stopped directly in front of Fllay. Kira smiled as his wife gently wrapped her arms around his waist, and pulled his body against her own as she captured his lips in a deep and passionate kiss.

"Yumi." Kira groaned. "Why right in front of our captive?"

"Because, I want to see how she reacts when she realizes what she is missing out on, and will never be able to experience for herself." Yumi sadistically answered, before leading Kira to a nearby bed, pushing him down and finally straddling his body. Yumi then began to eagerly kiss her handsome husband, and the amethyst-eyed man found that he was completely helpless to resist.

She kissed, and kissed, and moaned as she eagerly pumped her lover's manhood, and after a few short moment, Kira's cock was rock-solid. She smiled in pleasure and began to grind her pelvis, inching it down, pushing herself onto his thick rod, forcing his erect manhood to enter her slippery depths.

"Just relax." Yumi whispered into his ear. "Igonre the observer." She purred, barely nodding towards Fllay's bound form. "Just lay back, and let it happen."

Her pussy was fantastic. The slick walls of her cunt twisted and teased and tantalized Kira's rigid member, his body tensed and with a throaty moan, he felt the rising tide of heat and lust and knew that his climax was upon him.

Yumi was overjoyed, and she howled in pleasure, her body rippling, almost as if she was sucking up her lover's seed. Her pussy moved and pulsed against his rock-hard shaft with impressive dexterity.

"Relax." Yumi purred, knowing that there wasn't much the amethyst-eyed man could do, as he found himself slowly, unavoidably drifting off to sleep.

Kira was awakened a few hours later by a naked body pressed against his own, but this time, a soft, pink-tipped nipple was thrust into his mouth; and reflexively he drank the hot, sweet milk that spurted forth. It was liquid bliss; sweet without being cloying, invigorating and yet relaxing. A comforting warmth spread through Kira's entire body, and while he felt contented, he slowly found that his cock was even harder than before, needing attention.

And yet, when Yumi impaled herself upon his member yet again, she seemed even more relieved, moaning her pleasure at her lover's penetration.

"Sorry, I didn't tell you. I'm insatiable." She moaned against her lover's lips as her hands teased him with feathery softness all over his body.

"For sex?" Kira surmised.

"For humans, sex is about quenching a desire. For immortals, and especially for goddesses, sex only makes us want more." She was now restraining Kira within a large mass of her silken brunette tresses, even as their frenzied coupling continued. "I tried to be a good girl, but I'm dirty inside."


	115. Failed Negotiations

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 115**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

The Excalibur's hanger bays were once again bustling with activity. Fighter, bomber and interceptor aircraft had all been fully loaded with weapons and were now being moved from the large hanger deck to the equally large flight deck. As with the aircraft, the Excalibur's compliment of mobile suits and Gundams had been fully recharged and resupplied, thus, they were also being moved to the flight deck.

The clouds themelves were suddenly cleaved apart as the bow of the Excalibur punched its way into the lower portions of the Earth's atmosphere. As the dagger-shaped warship descended below 35,000 feet, a faint rumble shook the ship.

"Well, so much for the Moon landing taking place on July 20th, 1969." Hope Yamato smirked from the cockpit of the Destiny Gundam. "It seems that we just impacted with, and completely beat the shit out of, the Saturn Five rocket which was being used by the Apollo 11 spaceflight."

"I told you, Kira." Murrue sighed within the cockpit of the Strike Freedom Gundam. "I told you that commencing the final stage of atmospheric reentry and launching our forces over the Kennedy Space Center was a bad idea."

"Be quiet, Murrue." Kira retorted. "Or when we get back, I'll lock you up in the dungeon with a pump attached to breasts and another one buried in your pussy."

"Ohh, that sounds like fun." Murrue grinned.

"You won't find it to be very fun after I restrain you to the electric chair and decide to accidentally leave it on at full power." Kira smirked as he continued. "Sure, you might enjoy it for a few hours, but after a while, even your body will want the constant pleasure to go away."

"I don't know about that, Kira." Cagalli spoke up from within the Akatsuki Gundam's cockpit. "Lacus restrained me to the electric chair once, and the feeling of that metal dildo vibrating wildly inside me, while sending relentless waves of electricity coursing through my body was absolutely wonderful."

"I knew you'd enjoy it, Cagalli." Lacus giggled from the cockpit of the Chimera Gundam.

"That's enough, all of you!" Kira finally yelled. "We have a mission to complete, and even if we didn't, I wouldn't want to discuss things like that on an open communications line."

"Kira." Lexi's voice suddenly spoke, even as she ship once again shuddered ever so slightly, although this time the shuddering was nearly constant. "The United States Air Force has deployed hundreds of aircraft in an attempt to shoot the Excalibur down."

Lexi, being both an advanded artificial intelligence and a hologram, was actually at all of the stations on the Excalibur's bridge simultaniously. Although, in order to avoid confusion, her holographic visage had taken the appearance of the crewmember that was normally posted at the respective stations.

The amethyst-eyed man allowed an annoyed sigh to escape his lips as he accessed the exterior cameras, but he was mildly surprised by what he saw. Swarming around the ship were hundreds of various aircraft, ranging from fighters and bombers, to helicopters. The attackers were unloading all of their machine guns and missiles into the hull of the massive dagger-shaped ship in a desperate attempt to blow it out of the sky.

"Nearly 100 fighters consisting of; McDonnell-Douglas F-4 Phantom IIs, Northrop F-5 Tiger IIs, McDonnell-Douglas F-4G Phantom II Wild Weasels, General Dynamics F-111 Aardvarks, and Vought A-7 Corsair IIs." Kira muttered, as the fighters swooped past the cameras. "Three dozen electronic warfare aircraft consisting of; Grumman A-6 Intruders, and Northrop Grumman E-6A Prowlers." He continued. "Three dozen attack helicopters consisting of; eighteen AH-1 Cobras, and eighteen AH-64 Apaches." He paused for a few seconds before finishing. "Although, there appear to be only four reconnaissance aircraft; two Grumman E-2 Hawkeyes, and two Lockheed SR-71 Blackbirds."

"Multiple bombers inbound!" Lexi's voice suddenly shouted. "A trio of North American XB-70 Valkyries, followed by four Corvair B-58 Hustlers, with six North American A-5 Vigilantes at the trailing end of the flight!" Lexi's voice suddenly bordered on panic. "All of the incoming bombers are carrying nuclear weapons!"

"So?" Kira scoffed. "The Excalibur is equipped with neutron jammers. Those bombs might dent the hull, but they can't detonate in the form of a nuclear explosion." As if on cue, the dagger-shaped warship was violently rocked as the bombs hit the hull and detonated, sending huge nuclear fireballs blossoming into the sky.

"Ow." Lexi's voice spoke once more. "Nuclear weapons hurt."

Kira's stomach twisted at the image that appeared on his subscreen a few seconds later. The image of an Eternal-class ship, its hull colored azure with crimson wings. Kira knew that ship well. It was the Alexandria, tenth of the Eternal-class of ships, and like all the Eternal-class ships since the Eternal II, the Alexandria was completely capable of atmospheric flight. The Alexandria had seemingly vanished from the Excalibur's hanger bay a few months earlier, and now it lay in the hands of the Earth Alliance. It was their flagship. And it was headed towards the Excalibur.

On the bridge, one of Lexi's holographic images, specifically the one at the sensors, which bore an appearance similar to Lacus Clyne, glanced up anxiously at the communications screen, and by extention, towards Kira. "They're transmitting a white flag signal using the diplomatic code."

Kira swallowed distastefully. "So, they want to negotiate a cease-fire, do they?"

"It certianly seems that way." Lacus spoke from the cockpit of the Chimera.

"Lexi, open a communications line." Kira replied, after a moment of thought. "I guess it's only fair to see what they have to say."

The shock rippled through the crew's hearts, and Kira forced himself to remain calm as another of Lexi's holograms, this one, seated in the captain's chair and bearing an appearance similar to Murrue, stared at him with disbelief etched onto her face. "Sir, you're going to negotiate a cease-fire?"

Deep within his heart, Kira felt the need to say yes, to turn the ship around, and to put an end to all of this. But he knew that he would never forgive himself for turning his back on humanity, for turning his back on his mission to eradicate all conflict. "I will hear his case." Kira said at last. "I didn't say that I would do as he asks." He waved at the hologram of Lexi whom was perched at the communications station, and bore an appearance similar to Meyrin Hawke. "Send the transmissions. I'll take it here, in the Divinity's cockpit." He paused for a moment before adding. "Also, I want these negotiations broadcast throughout the ship."

A few short seconds later, the communications line opened, and Kira Yamato's bright amethyst eyes met the cold brown eyes of Joseph Copland, the current leader of the Earth Alliance. The old man scanned Kira's surroundings through the monitor, and under his steely gaze, Kira tried not to shiver.

"Supreme Commander Yamato." The old man said at last. "I trust you understand why I've opened communications with you."

Kira pressed down his emotions and sat back in the cockpit. "Of course. I will hear your case."

"Our gassing of the Copernicus City lunar colony was completely unjustified." Joseph said, hanging his head. "Thus my case should be rather obvious. I wish to surrender, putting the entirity of the Earth Alliance under Celestial Being's control."

"I was under the impression that ZAFT forces had attacked Copernicus City." Kira responded, his eyes widening slightly. "Even so, what assurance do you give that if we do accept your surrender, humanity will survive?" He asked, narrowing his eyes. "You should have come to make this case before you attacked Copernicus. Sadly, there's no turning back now."

"Supreme Commander Yamato." Joseph said, and Kira felt a chill wash over his body. "You know full well that doing the right thing requires no reward outside of itself. Do you think I don't see the tremble in your hands? Do you think I don't know your history? Do you think I don't know that you stopped a senseless slaughter like this at the height of the Bloody Valentine Wars? I know you are a man who would not kill millions of people for no reason. And yet you have done exactly that. You have buried a good man somewhere within you, and I am here to appeal to you to dig him up."

Kira swallowed and felt his heart race. Somewhere in himself, the somewhere that Joseph had so effortlessly found, he knew he agreed, knew that he had to throw off this charade and atone for his sins. "I was naïve then. I am not now."

"No. Now you are a murderer." Joseph leaned forward. "I do not care what you do with me. I do not expect you to stop attempting to eradicate all conflict. In fact, if you went about it a little differently, I might even be convinced to support your cause. I appeal to you instead, Kira Yamato. The man who saved the PLANTs from Murata Azrael, and the Earth from Patrick Zala. Somewhere within you beats the heart of a man who fights against injustice instead of causing it. I am here to bring him back."

"I'm afraid you're wrong, Joseph." Kira said quietly. "But there is one part of me that remains the same. I am a man of my word. I have let you plead your case." He stood up and drew a pistol from his uniform. "And I am also under orders to kill you."

Joseph frowned. "So be it. My work here is done."

For a moment, Kira's finger twitched over the trigger, as visions of this man leading his new world danced before his eyes, but then he saw Fllay Allister's death, GENESIS, the ZAFT warship Executer, and the Requiem again, he clenched his teeth and pulled the trigger, instantly utilizing his divine abilities to teleport the speeding bullet from the barrel of his weapon, and through the heart of Joseph Copland.

"Captain." He said into the intercom as he waved the smoke away and replaced his weapon. "Begin the attack."

On the bridge of the Alexandria, Joseph Copland's heart monitor went dead, and William Sutherland felt his own heart sink into his stomach. Just as Joseph himself had predicted. The rest of the bridge crew listened wordlessly to the long, heartless tone from the little heart monitoring device, before Sutherland bowed his head and threw the power switch. Their disbelief hung in the air.

In the captain's chair down in front, the young officer named Shinji Ikari, in the old off-white Alliance uniform glanced up anxiously at the older man. "Orders, sir?"

Sutherland glanced painfully over at the Excalibur, just long enough to watch as the dagger-shaped warship's guns angled towards the Alexandria. "Evasive action, now!"

The Alexandria obligingly swung down as the Excalibur's cannons fired, and the crimson-winged warship rocketed away before the enemy could lock on. Sutherland settled back into his chair and swallowed his emotions as Shinji barked out orders and the crew set to work.

The Divinity Gundam hummed as Kira Yamato guided it into battle and steeled his nerves for a fight. Joseph Copland's words still ricocheted through his mind and sent a wash of coldness down his spine. Deep in his soul, he knew that the man which Joseph Copland had sought was still there. That man would have flown into this battle on the other side, the side standing against him, protecting this city.

But that man was gone, and this one, the one whose hands rested on the Divinity's shuddering controls, was the one that was left.

He looked up in surprise at a feeling of mental pressure up ahead and keyed on his camera's zoom feature, and then he frowned in surprise, as there, floating protectively before the Alexandria, waited a black Gundam with blood red wings and a shimmering green beam sword.

"Who...?"

With a flash from its eyes, the GAT-X777S Judgement Gundam charged.


	116. The Judgement Gundam

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 116**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

"Damn!" Kira Yamato snarled as the GAT-X777S Judgement Gundam delivered a jarring kick to the Divinity Gundam's chest, sending the angel-winged mobile suit slamming into the ground. When Kira brought his machine to its feet a short few seconds later, he found himself staring down the barrel of the Judgement Gundam's beam cannon, the muzzle of the energy weapon glowing with a blood red light. Just before the pilot could fire, however, the Judgement Gundam faded from existence as another timeline entered the area.

After a few seconds of silence, Kira opened the hatch and jumped from the cockpit ledge of the Divinity Gundam down to the pavement below, his bones juddering slightly with the impact, but a mere fall of close to sixty feet onto concrete wasn't nearly enough to break them, by any means. The amethyst-eyed man smirked as he kicked loose shards of pavement from the shallow craters his feet had created upon impact. As soon as he had landed, Kira looked up at the sound of steadily descending mobile suit thrusters and he silently watched as the Akatsuki, Chimera, Crimson Fury, Destiny, Impulse, Violet Justice, Savior Strike Freedom and Wing Gundam Zero arrived, the pilots quickly powering down their respective machines before then jumping down from the cockpit. Shuffling sounds from nearby heralded the arrival of their welcoming committee, a ragtag band of dead-eyed humans and other life forms, mostly four legged, but a few that slithered and one or two that flew, all with the same empty gaze and slack mouths.

Most of the humans were holding digging implements of one sort or another, and all the creatures were stained with dust and concrete chips, most looking significantly undernourished, if not actively starving. Kira freed the Tessaiga from its sheath, swinging huge the blade at one of the humans experimentally, a lazy blow that even a child would have been able to dodge had they desired to, but the brainwashed human didn't even seem to realize he was under attack. Neither did he scream, or flail, or even react at all when the Tessaiga cleaved right through his middle and sliced him in half, spraying blood and organs over several of the nearby humans, who didn't even blink, or change facial expression at all. Nobody home there, less expressive than cattle in a pen. How disappointing, and how disgusting. If this was what the creature that went by the name of; Caller, did to people who happened to pass near his lair, then Kira wanted to kill him even more now...this sort of thing would lead to humanity's extinction if it were allowed to run rampant! And it could not be allowed to do so.

"Didn't I expressly ask you _not_ to kill or break anything, Kira!" Murrue tried to remonstrate with him, her voice a little shrill, as she, along with Kira's six other lovers, quickly bounded over to his side where he stood glaring at the dead eyed humans. "We don't know anything about this timeline! Honestly, you're like a little kid! You did that just because I asked you not to, didn't you?"

"That was part of it. You do not control what I do and don't do, Murrue, you know that. If I want to kill something, I kill it, and neither your words nor your feelings will stop me. Get in my way and I'll cut you down too." Kira eyed her. "But I was also interested in seeing how the creature, known as Caller, whose lair we have landed upon, would react to the slaughter of one of his puppets. To be honest, I don't think he even noticed. That greatly displeases me."

"Killing them is apparently like tossing a dog treat down his gullet, since he feeds on their souls." Hope sighed. "And given that he must have thousands, maybe even tens of thousands of puppets under his control in this city alone, I think it'll be quite a while before you nickel and dime him into fullness. Now come on...there's going to be plenty of fighting and killing to do later."

"If you insist upon treating me like a little kid, with these lectures, then I must demand you either carry me or hold my hand, to maintain the illusion." Kira retorted, smirking as he watched the frustration leak into Hope's spine, stiffening it noticeably.

"Sometimes I really want to just shoot you in the head, you know that, Kira?" Hope growled at him, reaching out and grabbing his free hand, and all but pulling him along behind her. Of course he went willingly, she was by no means strong enough to pull him more than a step or two if he wanted to brace himself, but her annoyance banished his annoyance, and that was the entire point of things. He was already bored as hell, still feeling a bit put upon that he was here at all He needed a distraction, and she was the only reliable one around, since the meat puppets were basically zombies, except less expressive.

"I'm not stopping you." He told her, with a widening smirk. "Though it would give new meaning to the phrase; shooting my mouth off, don't you think?"

"I don't even know why we even try anymore, you're impossible." Hope grumbled, exasperation flavoring every word, as she led him towards the edge of the massive pit which they had landed near. He noted that the humans were following them, not crowding, but definitely staying close by, though whether it was as observers or guards he didn't know nor did he care. He reminded himself again why he was there, because he'd decided that morning to humor his lovers to make up for his more recent failures, and forced himself to be a little more accomodating. It was obvious that his lovers were not happy to be here, indeed they were all but radiating dread on the mental plane, and his attempts at self-amusement weren't helping them focus on the task at hand. The less he bothered them now, the quicker they could deliver their message, and the quicker they could leave.

They stood at the lip of the pit, which wafted a faint stench that seemed to mix the smells of sewage, seawater and an open grave. The pit was cylindrical in shape, and easily twenty meters across. Kira peered down into the depths, but even his eyes couldn't make out the bottom with much clarity, though he did detect a faint glint of sunlight on water in the depths. He narrowed his gaze, because there seemed to be something...large, wriggling around down there. And then it was wriggling closer, and he heard his lovers reflexively gasp, Hope's hand tightening on his as the object slowly revealed itself. It was either a worm or a massive tentacle of some sort, a good nine or ten feet around, and at least two or three hundred meters in length, its flesh a slimy pale white, covered with mauve suckers the size of his head.

The tip was crowned with a ring of what looked like interlaced spikes at first glance, but were soon revealed to actually be interlocked teeth, as the tip of the tentacle split open along five palps, each palp interior studded with hundreds of peg-like teeth, the palps undulating like tongues as the tentacle snatched forward and swallowed a half dozen of the diggers in a single gulp, palps slamming closed with a gooey smushing sound as the teeth and muscular action chewed and pulped the hapless puppets at the same time, bloody paste squirting from the seams where the palps met at the top of the feeder tendril, the mass of flesh and crushed bone actually visible as it was slowly swallowed by the tentacle, on its way to some distant stomach or digestion chamber. The tentacle waved towards them next, and Kira felt his lovers tense next to him, but he just stared at the appendage indolently, recognizing what he'd just seen as a deliberate test or scare tactic. The Caller wanted to see if they were squeamish or not.

"Go ahead and try to eat me." Kira challenged, figuring the huge creature could hear his words as he thought them, or else hear them with the remaining puppets. "Though you'd better be prepared for some very serious heartburn if you try it. I don't swallow easily."

"Ugh." He heard his lovers comment under their breath, but he was glad to see that they were calming down again, more frustrated with his crudity than they were scared of the Caller's mouth, or hand or whatever the appendage was. Blood and slime of unidentifiable origin drooled from the tip of the feeder tendril as it curved down towards them, the mouth-tip remaining closed, as the tendril formed a sort of living platform for them to step onto, which they did, Kira smirking, his lovers somewhat more hesitatingly. Once they were aboard, the tendril carefully and smoothly lowered down through the mouth of one of several dozen major digestion pits that dotted the surface sector of the Caller's home domain, into which all dead or dying biological matter was deposited by his servants, to stew and pickle in the stagnant water at the bottom, until the Caller felt peckish and decided he wanted a tastier dish. The Caller was perfectly capable of eating dirt or other mostly inanimate objects, like an earthworm, and deriving sustenance from it, and that made up most of his diet, while at the same time expanding his home, but parts of him still craved flesh or plant life from time to time, and he liked having some on hand to indulge with.

Kira and his nine lovers were actually the first living, undominated creatures to ever be allowed into the Caller's true lair, which was literally eaten out of the soil and rock and concrete foundations of the city. The main hub of the underground cavern network was the submerged sinkhole where the Miami aquarium had once been, where the Caller had been born, bathing in the concentrated radioactive water dripping down from the surface, a conglomerate organism entirely unlike anything else found in all of Nature, combining aspects of horeshoe crab, octopi, jellyfish, earthworm and clam, an aberration of flesh and filmy fluids that rapidly grew and so large that he actually became trapped in the flooded ruins of his birthplace, his flesh spilling out into submerged hallways and filling the few large capacity aquarium tanks that had survived being bombed by nuclear weapons, until the Caller's main body filled up a good five or six thousand cubic feet spread out through the aquarium building, most of that being brain and nervous system, though there was an occasional, mostly defunct stomach and extra heart.

The Caller had originally possessed both lungs and gills, but as his body had expanded, it grew more efficient to breath through his skin, mostly through the sometimes mile-long feeder tendrils that branched out from his main body in all directions, hollowing out the digestion pits and connections to the nearby ocean to provide his caverns with plenty of wet, brackish moisture, which also kept the flabby, pulsating mass of his brain cooled and supported. The feeder tendrils, which could grow up to fifteen meters in diameter in the largest cases, also acted as preliminary stomachs, their internal fluids breaking down most of the resilient sections of a biological substance in time for the pulpy mass to be deposited in one of a half dozen main stomachs, which absorbed the nutrient glop via strong acids, converting it to more mass or offspring, which were really more like what humans would call symbionts, crab-like organisms that patrolled the caverns acting as janitors, guards and eyes, sometimes growing as large as ten feet across and weighing as much as three adult humans, though they were rarely, if ever seen on the surface, being just as sensitive to sunlight like the Caller himself was.

Kira was about to speak, when his mind was suddenly assaulted by the Caller's mental voice, a mental voice powerful enough to make even him visibly stumble. _'What do you want, human?'_

"First and foremost, learn to modulate that mental voice of yours!" Kira snarled. "Jesus Christ!"

_'Why should I not eat you both up right now, eh?'_ The Caller mentally smirked.

"Because we came here in good faith with a proposal that could greatly benefit you." Lacus forced herself to reply, remembering to play to the Caller's self-centered need for survival. He wasn't going to be interested in an alliance unless he thought he was getting the better end of a deal out of it.

_'I could still eat you up and sift your genetic material for that same info and make my decision without having to waste my time speaking to food morsels. Why shouldn't I eat you again?'_ The caller repeated.

"Because the moment you try, the Akatsuki, Chimera, Crimson Fury, Destiny, Divinity, Destiny Impulse, Violet Justice, Savior, Strike Freedom and Wing Zero Gundams will fire their full arsenals at my location, and annihilate this entire city and you along with it." Kira cut in with an unconcerned yawn. "Us too of course, but since we're the ones being eaten alive, I doubt we'll really care. So, are you still hungry?"

_'I don't like you...'_ The Caller replied. _'You are not afraid of me...'_

"The feeling's mutual, asshole." Kira agreed, spitting a wad of phlegm off the edge of the platform, splattering it across the skin of the feeder tendril a few meters down. "And one of these days, hopefully soon, you and I will have a chance to resolve this dislike in a much more permanent fashion. I'm going to carve you up like a christmas ham, and then I'm going to eat you all up and shit you out, even if it takes me three years straight to do it! But I can't do that right now, because you and I both have bigger problems. Namely this war that's going on all around you."

_'This war brought me hundred of thousands of tasty slaves to dig for and feed me so far.'_ The Caller mentally scoffed. _'Why should I consider that a problem? Let them come, I'm willing to eat if they are willing to feed me.'_

"But this time the humans won't come for you on the ground, or at least not soley on the ground." Shiho spoke up, groaning inwardly at Kira's confrontational taunting, but at least he seemed to have gotten the Caller's attention, and not his ire. "They have huge warships that will bombard you from high up in the sky, and long range missiles that will blast the city apart and melt holes even down this far, and you cannot defend yourself against such things. Search my thoughts if you don't believe me, look, and see what's coming, I beg you, Caller!" She said imploring, lowering her mental shields, not that she thought he even noticed, but it was all she could think of to do. She felt pressure sweep through her, like her mind had been inundated briefly by a tidal wave, and she staggered to the ground, retching, eyes almost rolling up into her head as the Caller looked, and not just at the thoughts she wanted him to either, he literally took a snapshot of her entire mind and memories, as easily as if he was dipping a ladle in a bucket of water.

_'Let them come, if they can. I will devour them all, mind, body and soul.'_ The Caller laughed. _'Time to feed...'_ The Caller added with rapturious glee as the feeder tendril hovered up behind them, palps splitting wide to reveal the slimy, tooth-studded interior, acidic drool dripping from the tips of the palp-tongues. The tentacle snatched at Kira and his lovers, but pulled up short, twitching in unfamiliar pain as Kira swung the Tessaiga and carved into the underside of the tentacle, dark, filmy blood spurting from the gash before muscle action clamped the wound shut. It was less than a papercut to something the size of the Caller, and a half dozen extra feeding tendrils were already on their way towards the speaking platform in case the first one was too injured to digest the envoys, but when Kira had struck, he had also channeled a psychic attack through the blade, projecting terror and anguish into the Caller as he carved through its tendril.

It was barely enough to even register in the Caller's thoughts, but it had caused that twitch, and had instantly suggested a different course of action to the almost god-like being. He wanted to devour these eight humans and fill his bellies with their flesh and his mind with their agonized last moments, but an extra second of mentally digesting the memories and impressions from Cagalli had been enough for the Caller to reconsider his hunger-based decision.

_'I have reconsidered your offer.'_ The Caller informed the two envoys. _'On one condition.'_

"Which is?" Cagalli asked, heart still racing from the brief adrenaline laced moment where she'd thought she was literally about to be eaten by the Caller.

_'Send your troops and machines and equipment. I shall not eat them unless they are already dying. But I require an equal voice in your war councils, someone to look out for my best interests. Someone to properly represent me.'_ The Caller paused. _'You shall be my champion, my mouthpiece at a distance.'_

"Like hell I will. I'm nobody's servant!" Kira spat vehemently, twirling the Tessaiga menacingly around himself to prove his point. But in less time than it took to the blink an eye, he found himself flat on his back, the sword lying just out of his reach, his entire body locked out of his control, his heart and lungs frozen, even the blood in his body stilled as every one of his veins and arteries constricted at once.

_'There is no option here. You own your lovers, I own you, Kira Yamato. You will represent me to your private armed organization. I give you my blessing and my protection.'_ The Caller intoned with a smirk, as he pressed down into Kira's mind, forging a more permanent but less controlling connection, similar to what he had with his symbiont drones, allowing him to see through their eyes and project through their minds should he so choose. He felt the human trying to resist, but he didn't know how and he didn't have enough power. _'It is done, you are mine now, until your dying day.'_

"I'm going to fucking kill you for this!" Kira promised furiously, slowly feeling his body start coming back to life as his mental faculties returned. "No one claims me!"

_'I am not one. I am the Caller. If you so hate what I have done to you then, by all means, I will be more than happy to eat you now. Kira Yamato, as you are, you cannot fight me. Does the one who calls himself God not care about his self-assigned crusade anymore? Is your pride more important than your duty? Will you abandon your lovers so soon?'_

"I won't forget this." Kira snarled, grabbing hold of the Tessaiga and levering himself back to his feet. "As one monster to another, I promise you, I will make you regret your arrogance, Caller. You're on my short list now."

_'As one monster to another...'_ The Caller mentally grinned. _'I accept your challenge. May the better monster prevail.'_

"I will be the one to win our little fight, you damn abominiation." Kira growled as he once again slipped the Tessaiga into the sheath on his right hip. "Just you wait and see. I have powers far beyond what you could possibly comprehend, even with 100% of your brain." With that, Kira turned and walked away, quickly followed by his nine lovers.

A sudden disturbance in the gloomy clouds overhead caught everyone's attention, as a sense of unease flooded through the nine women as the hair on the back of their neck suddenly stood up. hat was all the warning they or anyone else had, as gargantuan pillars of tightly focused blue-white light, positron cannon blasts, speared down out of the heavens and stabbed into the ground in the city outskirts, the clouds boiling away from proximity to the searing energy blasts as they dragged across the ground for a few seconds, scoring four molten rimmed trenches as wide as a main battle tank in the ground for almost a half mile, bisecting a skyscraper like an ice cream bar sliced by a red hot wire grater, penetrating far enough in one case to even pierce a far flung section of the Caller's cave network, not a part he happened to be inhabiting at the moment, but the flash of steam from the energy blast hitting pooled water did reach the tips of a feeder tendril, blistering his skin and eventually giving him a minor flare of pain, like a stubbed toe.

Blinking purple and electric blue spots and bars out of their vision, the nine women staggered down the slope of the rubble pile which they had been standing upon, hot winds buffeting them as the superheated air which the scorching energy blasts had traveled through gusted away from the impact points, the clouds overhead beginning to roil and boil even more agitatedly than before as the trailing salvo of heavy beam blasts and bombardment cannon shells screamed down the gravity well, the ZAFT Ultima-class warship Impractical and its escort fleet heaving to at low orbit overhead as they fired blindly but with great fervor into the cloud cover over Miami, not knowing exactly where to target and so contenting themselves with a saturation attack to soften the area up for a more focused ground assault. Murrue's heart leapt into her throat as the ground rumbled and shook beneath her feet in reaction to the orbital bombardment, and she felt the psychic landscape quiver in reply as the Caller stirred and marshaled his power, alien thoughts and emotions flying through her mind like mental shrapnel that brought her to her hands and knees before the Caller reigned himself in, with the equivalent of a mental sneer of disdain for his weak human allies and their frail minds.

Thankfully most of the ZAFT weapons fire seemed to be concentrated on the remains of the city downtown and center, rather than the coastal sections where the Caller actually laired, ZAFT's information was obviously either faulty or more likely just incomplete. Until yesterday, even Kira never would have been able to tell anyone where the Caller's main body actually was for sure. It was a small mercy...once the ZAFT troops got on the ground they would be able to direct the orbital fire much more accurately, and even a hundred meters of concrete and soil wouldn't keep the Caller safe from a concentrated barrage from a ZAFT attack fleet led by one of their super warships for long.

The Ultima-class warships of ZAFT were heavily based upon the Celestial Being warship Excalibur, although not nearly as well armed, since ZAFT didn't have the ability to develop temproal weapons, and were still utilizing normal nuclear reactors as their power sources.

Unlike ZAFT's Ultima-class warships, the Excalibur had truly limitless energy reserves due to dozens of various power sources, ranging from nuclear reactors and GN Drives, to warp cores and zero point modules. The Excalibur's zero point module was a truly limitless power source, since it extracted pure energy from a small artificially-created region of subspace.

Suddenly, one of the GOUF pilots screamed, and it was the single most frightening sound that Yzak Joule, whom was piloting the GAT-X102 Duel Gundam, had ever had the misfortune of hearing, a keening wail like a lost soul being cut in half! If terror could have been distilled into a single sound, this would be it! By no means was he a fearless person. It wasn't the lack of fear that was important, it was the channeling of fear into the desired results, be it obedience or greater combat ability in pinch situations, rather than allowing it to run rampant and degrade the efficiency of the soldier. When Yzak got scared it was like fuel for his already amped up body. But this was different. This reached down into parts of him he didn't even know he had, turned his knees to rubber, his guts to ice, and all but froze him in place in mid-stride as his instincts rebelled against the idea of taking him even a step closer to the source of the sound.

And then the GOUF in question fell apart like an onion that had been dropped through a blender, blood spraying in wide arcs as the machine and its pilot just came apart in chunks! And then came that scream again, the exact same pitch and frequency, generating the exact same 'get the fuck away from it' reaction, and Yzak realized it wasn't the pilots that were screaming. It was something that was attacking them. His first inclination was a monster of some sort, but the ones which had been observed tended to be fairly large, at least as bulky as the GOUFs were, and he didn't see anything like that in amongst them. The wailing shriek sounded a third time, and two GOUFs fell over, cut in half at the waistline with a single invisibly fast stroke, and Yzak finally caught a glimpse of the attacker through the reverse waterfall of spurting blood and oil that fountained from the torso stumps. It was, somehow, human.

But what a human it was, covered from head to toe in the lifeblood of the GOUF pilots, wearing not a single scrap of armor, the remains of his white uniform ragged and all but hanging off his lean body in scraggly threads, even as he wielded a pair of swords that moved so fast in his hands that not even the Duel's enhanced sensors could make out the exact form of the weapons. In fact the man as a whole was moving at the sort of jittery speed which one normally would associate with hitting the fast forward button a few too many times when watching a movie, it was hard to keep track of where he even was, he actually seemed to teleport from place to place. Yzak's eyes widened and the breath caught in his throat, as he saw that this wasn't the first group of pilots to engage or be engaged by this guy, there were easily twenty or thirty dismembered mobile suits and bodies lying on the pavement, strewn all down the street, cut apart like gingerbread men whom had been attacked with a butcher's cleaver.

The screaming was coming from the action of the twin blades as they swung through the air, though how they achieved such an effect, Yzak had no clue, and a superstitious part of him had no real desire to know either, the sound was just that unsettling. He was still deciding what to do when matters were taken out of his hands, as the man dispatched the last of the GOUFs almost contemptuously, slamming the haft of his weapon into and through the pilot's chest, the sheer force of the blow knocking the GOUF flat on its ass, before the mobile suit and its pilot were bisected from crotch to crown by the keening, blurry fast blades, which cut through armor, flesh and ground like it wasn't even there. Yzak was still staring in shock at the first blow though...this was definitely no normal human, not even a Coordinator had the kind of strength to knock a GOUF down, much less with a single blow. And then it was just the two of them, the city rocking all around them with the sounds of other furious battles, but on this street, it was quiet again.

Yzak then got a good look at the man and the weapons he was wielding. The man's eyes were a glowing with a bright amethyst light, with blood red centers. The sword that he wielded in his left hand was massive, about the size of the rear bumper on a 2009 BMW 128i, while the blade in his right hand was of average size.

"Boy, I've been dodging bullets since before the best part of you dripped down your mother's leg." Kira taunted Yzak, as he sprinted towards the GAT-X102 Duel Gundam. "Do you have any idea who I am? You must not..."

"Don't know, don't care." Yzak spat back, refusing to be intimidated by the man's posturing, more than familiar with that line of action himself.

"My name is Kira Jesus Yamato." The man added anyway, and grinned so wide his head seemed to be split in half by his teeth.

"Okay, so maybe I do care a little bit." Yzak said unhappily under his breath. Everyone knew that name. Kira Yamato was one of only ten Ultimate Coordinators in existence, Kira had been the first Ultimate Coordinator to be born, the result of Ulen Hibiki's Ultimate Coordinator experiments.

And then, Yzak was firing again, backpedaling as he did so, because Kira had spun the pair of swords around his body, releasing a keening wail of the damned, and was blurring towards him, his feet moving so fast that the Duel couldn't even track individual steps, explosions of dust, concrete chips and plumes of dirty water rising from the ground around him as the Duel's machine guns emptied their magazines at the charging God, to impressive, though little noticable, effect. Twin barrels glowing red hot with the escaped heat of long-term rapid-fire, the Duel's internal systems blared at Yzak to cease firing, in order to give the weapons time to cool before they overheated, but with only a hundred rounds of ammo left, it hardly mattered, so he kept the electronic trigger depressed. And then, the inevitable happened; Yzak was filling the air with so much hot lead that not even a God-like being such as Kira Yamato could squirm out of the path of all of it, and there was a muted spray of blood as three rounds caught him at hip, stomach and upper chest, the heavy .30 caliber slugs knocking Kira sideways and back several staggering steps, off balance.

Incredibly, despite having seen at least one of the slugs pierce right through Kira's body, judging by the splatter of blood that had exploded behind him, the amethyst-eyed man stayed upright, despite his uniform shirt being ripped to shreds and his torso coated in his own blood. Which had already dried to the consistency of boiled leather by the time it landed on his skin, the thumb-sized entry holes and palm-sized exit hole already scabbed over by Kira's blood. Containing his shock, Yzak aimed very carefully with one of his last bullets, and shot the amethyst-eyed man right between the eyes just as he was recovering his balance, gore exploding from his forehead as his head whiplashed backwards and Kira was hurled to the ground flat on his back, both swords dropping from his hands to slice deeply into the ground, one of the weapons transforming from a massive blade the size of the rear bumper of the 2009 BMW 128i, into a standard sword.

"Didn't dodge that one, did you?" Yzak retorted with a slightly breathless sneer. "It doesn't matter how many you do dodge, if you don't dodge the one that kills you!" Yzak shook his head, and stored the now empty machine guns back on his mobile suit's hips. The Duel turned to leave, but the mobile suit suddenly froze in mid-stride and whirled back around when Kira laughed, and Yzak's mind blanked with disbelief as his sensors flashed error messages across his screens, as Kira sat up, chuckling uproariously the entire time, the skin on his forehead all but ripped away to reveal the dully glinting bone of his skull beneath, torn flaps of skin hanging down over his right eye, which he reached up and contemptuously tore away to clear his vision. Despite being clearly visible, the skull was totally unmarked, not even scratched by the impact of the .30 caliber bullet, which had struck and then deflected up and away after imparting its moment.

The sheer force of the impact alone should have scrambled a person's brains, even if it failed to somehow penetrate the skull. "You've got to be fucking kidding me..." Yzak swore under his breath, as Kira continued to chuckle, his eyes blazing with emotions that didn't belong in a human mind, as the amethyst-eyed man gracefully climbed back to his feet, snickering all the while.

"Fuck you." Yzak snarled, deploying the beam saber from his left wrist and ingiting the bright yellow energy blade, while lashing out at the same time with a sweeping leg thrust aimed at Kira's waist, too high to easily jump over, too low to be ducked under. He grinned...and then grimaced...as his foot caught the amethyst-eyed man in the side with the force of a small car crash, knocking the giggling bastard several feet sideways, but not seeming to overly hurt him much, certainly he didn't break any bones or cause debilitating injuries. "You really are a monster..."

"No, I am God." Kira corrected the sliver-haired coordinator jauntily. "The greatest God, who will finally, after countless millenia, unite humanity and reforge the best and brightest of them into the sharpest imaginable blade, as the rest are cast down in blood and ruin and death! I am the both God and Satan...and anyone who tells you different is simply a liar...or in denial." Kira smirked as he reached out with one hand and snagged the Duel's left wrist, halting the swinging beam saber in mid-attack, Kira's feet skidding on the ground for a few inches as he absorbed the momentum of the blow.

Suddenly, the grey sky above the city boiled once more, as the colossal blue-white lances of the Impractical's positron cannons, all 50 of them, again pierced the cloud cover and touched down in the city, not dragging like they had the first time, but burning straight down, glassifying rock and soil as they dug deep, targeting a point that was close to central among the visible digestion pits, from which several feeder tendrils had been extending and attacking GOUF pilots that had penetrated to that section of the city ruins. At first there was no reaction, as the focused light melted its way down into the city foundations. When the psychic cry of agony came though, as the positron beams brushed through the edges of the Caller's primary habitat and filled the environs of his brain and main body with flash heated steam, nobody was ready for it.

In one instant, every creature within a fifty mile radius that was dominated by the Caller died a horrible death as their brain burned out so violently that some of them actually spontaneously combusted from the inside out, their skulls exploding with the surge of electric activity, sending chunks of deep fried brains and scorched skulls scattering like shrapnel. Only those beings of God-like power, such as Kira and his lovers, were able to shield themselves from the brunt of the scream and thus escaped with only instantaneous unconsciousness and mild seizuring. Likewise, all those creatures within the zone that were not symbiotically linked or dominated by the Caller were also blasted senseless if they were lucky, or into catatonia and drooling grand-mal seizures if they were not. The GOUFs were falling in droves as blackness rose up to claim Yzak, even as he aimed the Duel towards the heavens and locked the thrusters on, propelling him up and out of the ruined city on an unguided course towards space. At the same time, completely unnoticed by anyone, ten more mobile suits, the Gundams of Celestial Being, also sped out of the atmosphere.


	117. Unprovoked Retaliation

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 117**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

The Divinity Gundam crashed onto the Excalibur's flight deck with the ear-piercing shriek of metal against metal and a huge shower of sparks.

About five minutes later, Kira slowly made his way towards the locker room door after finally freeing himself from the Divinity's cockpit harness. But suddenly, a voice spoke, echoing throughout the hanger. "You people may have won this round...but don't get used to it, as you are about to lose."

Everyone inside the hanger quickly began to look around for the source of the unidentified voice, but it was Kira that found the source; strapped to the back of the Divinity Gundam's right leg, was a large canister labeled with the words; VX nerve gas.

"Oh shit!" The amethyst-eyed man yelled, even as the canister started to let out a quiet hiss as the gas began to be released. "Everyone out of the hanger, now!"

Kira also dashed for the door, but almost instantly, he began to show symptoms of exposure. First, his eyes became watery, then his pupils shunk to small pinpoints, even as he began to experience a throbbing pain in both eyes, along with blurred vision. The amethyst-eyed man was almost halfway to the doors leading out of the hanger when he suddenly began to experience excessive sweating, tightness in his chest, and rapid breathing. When he was only a few steps from the door, his body collapsed to the floor as a full-body seizure, confusion, drowsiness, weakness, and finally, a splitting headache set in. All of these symptoms had appeared within only 35 seconds of first exposure.

"We have to get him out of there!" Murrue screamed, tears streaming down her cheeks, even as she, along with Kira's other nine lovers, helplessly watched from just beyond the sealed hanger door, as his body collapsed to the floor and was wracked with a crippling full-body seizure.

Kira's entire body felt as though it was on fire, and it may as well have been, since his skin was actually bubbling as the posionous vapor came into contact with it. It was like nothing else he'd ever felt. It was unrelenting. The toxic vapor was so concentrated that it was actually causing chemical burns to form on Kira's skin.

All at once, the agony and fear and suffering of their mutual lover, Kira Yamato, who was currently trapped inside the vast hanger of the Excalibur, slammed into the consciousness of Asuka, Cagalli, Hope, Lacus, Lexi, Mayu, Murrue and Shiho, causing each of the eight women to take a stumbling step backwards due to the immense pain that their lover was experiencing.

Kira forced the searing pain out of his consciousness as he slowly began to rise to his feet. His raw, blood-soaked hands barely supported his weight as he forced his body to stand. His bloodshot, tear-blurred eyes glaring directly at the doors leading out of the hanger, even as multiple alarms and automated announcements blared throughout the now deserted hanger. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Kira made it to the door leading out of the hanger, only for his body to limply fall against it, his normally limitless strength and energy having been leeched away from his body by the highly specialized posion that now filled the hanger. With the last of his rapidly wanning strength, the amethyst-eyed man turned to face his lovers as they stood just beyond the door, staring at his blood-soaked face in horror and disbelief. Finally, his body gave out and he collapsed to the floor in a motionless, blood-soaked heap.

Kira Yamato tossed and turned on a bed in his private section of the Excalibur's infirmary, draped with a thin blanket that he didn't really need, his head resting restlessly on a large silk pillow taken from the quarters which he shared with his many lovers. His eyes were closed, but he was far from asleep or even relaxed, despite how exhausted he was.

He knew he was letting himself fall apart, but it was only an intellectual understanding, he lacked the willpower, and somehow, even the ability, to do much to fix the situation. Not right now anyway, not when the pain of the wound dealt to his entire body and soul was still so deep and ragged and fresh. He wasn't eating anywhere near enough, at least not for his body's extremely high requirements. While it was true that Kira, not to mention his eight lovers, could survive forever without eating or drinking anything, they usually preferred to do so anyway, in an effort to maintain a connection with their human roots.

He remembered to shave every few days, and to wash himself about as often, but with no one around to pressure him into cleaning up, both his private section of the infirmary and himself, the place was starting to take on the look of a college dorm room after an all-night drinking session. There were even a few emptied medicine containers and bottles lying on the floor. Kira wasn't particularly fond of the idea of suicide, he couldn't even die if he wanted to, not after attaining the powers of God, but after finding the medicine cabinet, he downed the various drugs anyway, just for the hell of it, but predictably, an eternal slumber had eluded him, in fact the drugs functioned more like incredibly powerful adrenaline shots and kept him awake and thinking much more than he'd wanted.

Kira spent most of each day either lying on the bed or else on his laptop, doing what programming and computer technology work he felt like he wanted to do for Celestial Being on any given day. He had turned off the communications systems, hiding from any interaction with anyone, knowing that he wasn't in control of himself at the moment, not trusting himself to keep things in perspective, to be calm and rational. He didn't want to hurt anyone more than they were already hurt, and the best way he could figure to do that was to isolate himself until he'd regained control of his life and actions.

Unfortunately, he didn't seem to be making much measurable progress in that regard, if anything he felt more strung out and less connected to reality now than he had before or during the attempt on his life. He was only now, incredible as it may have seemed, coming to realize what a huge part of himself was made up of ignorance and the belief that he couldn't be harmed by anyone. If anything, it was all made even worse by the fact that Kira, his lovers and their children, were psychic, the sub-conscious emotional and telepathic bonds between them were the most reassuring things in the world, but now, Kira wished that he had never been reborn as a God. The psychic bonds offered certainty in a way that was simply above and beyond what ordinary physical and emotional intimacy could ever offer, it banished all sense of doubt, and allowed him to know exactly how his family felt about him and vice-versa. And now, as Kira sat in the Excalibur's infirmary, recovering from a completely new form of VX gas which had been specially designed in an attempt to target and kill him, his family was seriously beginning to question his actions and even his sanity.

With a sigh, Kira opened his eyes and sat up from the bed. Lying there with his eyes closed was just not going to work, and meditation was simply out of the question. Self-introspection at a time like this would only highlight all those parts of him that were now gone or had been damaged by various losses that he had suffered over the millenia, he might as well just stick a knife in his ribs and begin twisting, it would hurt less.


	118. Eden Prime

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 118**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

After the assassination attempt, Celestial Being remained in the shadows, watching, protecting, guiding. And then, more than 400 years later in the year 2350, everything began to change. Explorers on Mars unearthed alien ruins. The human race was electrified. Did this mean they were no longer alone? The ruins pointed humanity deeper into space where they discovered that Pluto's moon of Charon was not actually a moon, but a shell concealing another ancient relic, one that would come to be called a Subspace Catapult. A colonization boom erupted as humanity began to expand beyond their solar system and began to chart one exotic world after another. And all the while, Celestial Being watched and waited...for contact with an alien race. And then, it happened. But not in the way anyone had hoped.

Humans called it the First Contact War. The Borg only refer to it as the Catapult 314 Incident. Technically it was all a big misunderstanding. The Borg, a race of cybernetic aliens, found a group of humans re-activating a Subspace Catapult named Catapult 314. This was forbidden under intergalactic law, but instead of negotiating, the Borg opened fire. One ship escaped to warn the Federation and the war began. Fortunately, it only lasted for three months, but the ramifications were long lasting. Celestial Being intervened in the only large-scale action during the war, the occupation of Triton and, for the first time in galactic history, an alien race knew what it was to battle with a Gundam. The humans and Borg were on the verge of a complete galactic war when Celestial Being managed to stop the fighting and negotiate a peace treaty between the two.

The sun shone across the rich, cream and brown-colored clouds of Jupiter as a sleek warship arced over the gas giant planet. This ship did not belong to the Earth Federation, its blue and white hull sparkled like a new car under the distant light of the Sol system's sun. Onboard the ship, various crewmembers in different colored uniforms went about their duties. One crewmember in particular was making his way to the bridge to watch as the ship passed through the subspace catapult.

He was a tall man, well-built with a strong jaw, sharp amethyst eyes and dark brown hair kept short. He was wearing what was considered a normal suit, the standardized pressure suits that all mobile suit pilots wore. It was colored a deep blue on the front and back with lighter blue flank panels and heavy armored padding on the chest colored grey.

This man strode onto the bridge of the ship just in time to see the pilot swinging the ship in front of the massive needle-shaped subspace catapult.

"Well! If it isn't Kira Yamato!" Lexi Yamato's holographic image grinned from the pilot's chair. "Hey check this out. This is going to be the ride of your life. Coordinates locked. Entering catapult in five...four...three...two…"

As the ship flew past the relay, the burning energy at the center of the needle reached out an ensnared the ship. With a bright, lightning flash, the ship accelerated and vanished, only to reappear at another relay. The ship then accelerated again and entered faster than light speed.

On the bridge, Lexi looked over her controls. "GN Field...stable. Drift...just under six inches."

"Damn, that's pretty good." Kira said, impressed.

"Pretty good?" Lexi smiled. "Are you even awake this morning? I just jumped us all the way across the galaxy to hit a target equivalent to the size of a sheet of notebook paper! That's more than good, that's awesome!"

"Shinn, how are you finding the Ptolemaios?" Kira asked, turning to face the crimson-eyed man as he sat at the weapons station.

"It's an excellent ship, sir." Shinn answered. "I'm proud to be serving on her."

"Did you know that this ship is named after the ship that Celestial Being used in its first public interventions?" Kira questioned.

"No, I didn't." Shinn responded. "So this ship has quite a reputation to live up to then."

"Don't worry, the new Ptolemaios is more than up to the challenge." Kira grinned. "This ship is equipped with all the latest technology that Celestial Being has developed. But that's not really the reason we're on this cruise."

"Oh?" Shinn asked. "And what is the reason, sir?"

"Well, there are two, one official and one unofficial." Kira replied. "The official reason is that we're heading to a planet called Eden Prime for some observation. Do you know much about Eden Prime?"

"It's one of humanity's most well-developed colonies." Shinn affirmed. "They say it's a paradise."

"Yes, Eden Prime is one of humanity's shining beacons, proving that we can build vibrant colonies far from Earth and protect them." Kira nodded. "Thanks to a certain discovery that they've made, Eden Prime is about to become the center of galactic attention." Kira was cut off as the ship suddenly fell into Red Alert, klaxons blaring as Lexi's voice automatically boomed from the speakers. "We're receiving an emergency distress call from Eden Prime."

"Patch it through, Lexi." Kira replied after he and Shinn shared a worried look.

Everyone on the bridge turned to gaze at the large screen at the front of the bridge, which blazed to life with a snowy image of Federation marines battling something that they couldn't see. Guns roared and men screamed. They saw one brief image of what looked like a white mobile suit landing behind the marines followed by some more fuzzy action and then a blurry, snowy image of a man in an mobile suit cockpit.

"This is Eden Prime colonial garrison! If anyone can hear this message we are under attack! Repeat we are under attack by-" The transmission abruptly cut off into a snowstorm of static. When the Ptolemaios arrived in orbit above Eden Prime, about five minutes later, the ship was instantly captured by a transparent blue tractor beam.

"We're caught in a tractor beam." Lexi reported, more out of habit than anything else, even as an arrowhead-shaped ship suddenly faded into existence in front of the Ptolemaios.

"No shit!" Kira snarled. "Reverse thrusters, full power!"

"That'll tear the hull apart." Lexi objected.

"Then tear it apart!" Kira yelled. "Just get us free!"

"What kind of ship is that?" Shinn asked, gestering to the ship which had captured them with its tractor beam, even as the Ptolemaios violently shuddered.

"Ship identified." Lexi answered. "NX-01A Dauntless, experimental vessel designed to test various technologies. Very heavily armed and armored, with a crew compliment of up to 500 including up to 250 soldiers, a Phase Shift armored hull, positron reflector energy shields, 30 torpedo tubes, 25 phaser banks, 45 anti-aircraft cannons, 2 positron cannons, 2 twin-barrel beam cannons, a quad-barrel missile launcher, assault probes, and dozens of fighter-shuttles.

"Damn, that's just excessive." Kira scowled. "Lexi, contact the Excalibur, tell them that they are hereby under orders to help repel the force attacking Eden Prime."

"Understood, sir." Lexi answered, pausing for a few short seconds before then adding. "Message sent, the Excalibur is on its way."

"Good, in the mean time." He took a deep breath before shouting. "Break us free of the Dauntless's damned tractor beam!"

"Understood." Shinn answered. "Firing all weapons on the Dauntless." An instant later, the Ptolemaios lashed out at the Dauntless with a barrage of searing beam blasts, only for the green energy bolts to slam uselessly against the Dauntless's glowing positron reflector.

"Kira, they're trying to set up a dampening field!" Lexi yelled, her voice slightly panicked, as she was not fond of the idea of going offline and being completely cutoff from an entire ship, especially since the ship in question was the one that her lover, Kira Yamato was onboard.

Before anyone could react, however, Lexi's holographic image vanished, even as lights throughout the entire ship began to quickly dim. Every single light, both inside and outside the ship, from the bright blue glow of the warp nacelles and navigational deflector, to the pure white lights illuminating the ship's registry and exterior windows, and even the green glow of the GN Drives, went out, leaving the ship in total darkness, invisible in the void of space.

"Damnit!" Lexi loudly swore as her holographic image suddenly appeared on the Exaclibur's bridge. This was one of the few times that she hated the fact that Kira had programmed her with the ability to experience the entire range of human emotions. At the moment, her mind was swirling with a combination of extreme sadness, helplessness and anger.

"Lexi?" Murrue asked, her expression one of shock and confusion. "What happened?"

"We had just arrived at Eden Prime when we came under attack." Lexi answered, completely unaware of the tears that were slowly slipping from her eyes as her roiling emotions caused her eye color to repeatedly cycle through the entire spectrum of visible light, even as her silken brunette hair steadily lengthened and shortened, the length of her soft tresses actually synchronizing with her simulated breathing. "The Ptolemaios was captured by a ship, which I was able to identify as the NX-01A Dauntless, but then a dampening field was established and, of course, I automatically deactivated since the holoprojectors no longer had power."

Murrue nodded in understanding as she freed the intercom phone from its cradle in the armrest of her chair and spoke into it. "All hands to level one battlestations!" With those words, the interior of the massive warship went dark for an instant, only to be illuminated by a blood red light. "Cagalli, set a course for Eden Prime, at the Excalibur's maxumium attainable speed." The marigold-eyed woman ordered. "Hope, bring all offensive and defensive systems online."

Less than five seconds passed, and then the massive dagger-shaped warship came to life, its MCPS armor activating with a hiss, and its engines rumbling as the huge vessel slowly moved out of Earth orbit.

A few hours later, back on the surface of Eden Prime, the ground quaked as a DINN came plowing down into it, and its killer went stalking forward, beam rifle in hand. The blue and yellow GAT-X135 Aile Sword Calamity Gundam, which was essentially nothing more than a standard GAT-X133 Sword Calamity Gundam with the addition of a flight pack on its back, was struck by a full clip from a GINN's machine gun, and retaliated with a beam blast from its chest cannon, spearing the GINN's torso. A GuAIZ R rose to avenge its fallen comrade, but with only its rail guns, stood no chance against the Aile Sword Calamity's next beam shot.

There was a loud crash, and Stella Loussier, the pilot of the Aile Sword Calamity Gundam, looked over to her left, wondering what it was. A group of buildings had exploded, and silhouetted against the flames was Auel Neider's new ZGMF-X33S-L Leviathan Abyss Gundam.

The Aile Sword Calamity rocked, and Stella blinked in surprise as her machine stumbled backwards. She looked around in confusion, finding nothing that could have knocked the mobile suit around, and then the ground exploded beneath her and the Aile Sword Calamity was sent hurtling back.

Before her, a big black and white Gundam with blood red accents and brightly glowing angel-style wings landed with a crash, with two huge blue swords in its hands. Stella blinked again, watching it combine the two swords and spin them majestically over its head, igniting the beam blades.

Inside the CB-X60D Divinity Gundam, Kira Yamato narrowed his eyes at the Aile Sword Calamity, standing quizzically before him.

"Who the hell do you think you are!" He growled, tightening his fists around the controls. "Do you want to start another war?" The Divinity charged, swinging its swords back. "Well, do you?"

Stella drew one of the Aile Sword Calamity's anti-ship swords and charged with a scream, and the two machines came together with a crash. Kira snarled against his foe, pushing harder, until the Aile Sword Calamity leapt away and a pair of plasma cannons emerged from its back, the two weapons swinging up and over its shoulders before then unleashing twin beams of searing plasma. Kira took the shots to the physical shield mounted on the Divinity's right forearm and glanced to the Aile Sword Calamity's left, there was a guard tower there, though the guard's cabin had been hit by a beam shot, leaving a large, heavy-looking chunk of twisted, fused metal; and the Aile Sword Calamity was in the perfect position.

As the Aile Sword Calamity opened fire again, Kira deflected the shots again with the Divinity's physical shield, before detaching the swords and hurling one of them to the Aile Sword Calamity's left. It stepped to the side, but the sword went slicing through the tower, and with a loud shriek of protesting metal, the tower came toppling down. The Aile Sword Calamity raised its shield in vain, slashing upwards with its anti-ship sword as the metal girders slammed down around it.

Kira narrowed his eyes at his immobilized foe and charged, brandishing his remaining anti-ship sword, but as he closed in for the kill, the Aile Sword Calamity freed itself and leapt up into the air, dodging Kira's killing stab.

"Kira!" A voice shouted. Kira glanced at the screen, finding the Katsuragi's ever-insistent Executive Officer, Arthur Trine, glowering at him. "Your orders are to capture them! Those are our machines!"

"I know that!" Kira shot back. He didn't need Arthur's complaints, especially in the middle of combat. The Divinity leapt into the air, spreading its angelic wings and, pulling back its sword as it chased the Aile Sword Calamity. "But I don't think I can capture them without inflicting at least some damage!" He added. The Divinity swung its sword at the Aile Sword Calamity, trying to slice off its right arm, but the blue and yellow mobile suit was much more nimble than it appeared to be, and jetted back towards the ground, and Kira grunted in frustration, cutting the thrusters to chase it.

"Be careful!" Arthur protested. "You're going to-!"

"Leave him alone, Arthur!" The voice of the Katsuragi's captain, one Misato Katsuragi, for whom the ship was named, cut him off. "Stop distracting him! You're going to get him killed!"

Kira smirked as the Divinity landed. At least Misato knew not to bother mobile suit pilots in combat anymore than necessary.

"Supreme Commander Yamato!" Another voice shouted. Kira once again took cover behind the Divinity's shield as the Aile Sword Calamity boosted backwards, firing its plasma cannons again. He glanced behind himself, finding a pair of Strike Daggers and a GINN jogging towards him. The face of a grizzled Celestial Being officer in a green shirt's flight suit appeared on the monitor. "We'll go around and hit the Aile Sword Calamity from behind! Distract it!"

Kira nodded and charged again, pulling his sword back again. The Aile Sword Calamity turned and charged right back, and the two mobile suits slammed together again. "I wish the Divinity still had its quantum crystal anti-ship sword." He growled, before kicking the Aile Strike Gundam in the chest, sending it skidding backwards.

Another storm of beam shots slashed through the air, and the two Strike Daggers and the GINN were blasted to pieces. Kira's eyes widened as the Leviathan Abyss Gundam landed amidst their smoldering remains, and tried to pull back, but the Aile Sword Calamity was there to insistently hold their position. The Leviathan Abyss drew back its beam lance, and inside the cockpit, Auel Neider laughed victoriously.

But it was not to be, as another beam shot ripped up the ground in front him, throwing the Leviathan Abyss back. With a roar of engines, a flash of crimson slammed into the Leviathan Abyss, sending it grinding against the ground and onto its back.

Kira's eyes widened as the ZGMF-X23S Savior Gundam raised its beam rifle at the fallen Leviathan Abyss. The Leviathan Abyss barely managed to block the shot with its shoulder shells, and responded with a volley of its own.

"Kira!" The pilot of the Savior Gundam, Shiho Hahnenfuss, shouted as the red Gundam took cover behind its beam shields. "You're forgetting about the Leviathan Abyss!" The Leviathan Abyss took off into the air, and the Savior went after it.

Kira grunted an obscenity. Yes, he loved Shiho, but sometimes she got in his way.

The Aile Sword Calamity surged forward, its pilot screaming, and Kira tensed, waiting for the blow. At the last second he leapt up, and the Divinity kicked the Aile Sword Calamity across the face, sending it staggering back. Landing with a crash, Kira raised his sword and charged, but the Aile Sword Calamity recovered soon enough to deflect the sword blow with its shield.

"You're about to be eclipsed!" The voice of Shinn Asuka yelled, as the ZGMF-X42E Eclipse Gundam suddenly dropped out of the sky, its quantum crystal anti-ship sword slicing through the Leviathan Abyss Gundam, the blade cleaving the mobile suit in half from crown to crotch as though it were passing through air. "You've just been eclipsed!" The crimson-eyed man scowled, even as he brought his beam cannon to bear and fired a searing energy blast, vaporizing the remains of the Leviathan Abyss.


	119. The Revenant Gundam

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 119**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

"Boy, the sorry bastard in that Gundam is never going to know what hit him." Andrew Waltfeld shook his head in mock pity, with that faux pity directed at the menacing form of the Earth Alliance GAT-X666S Revenant Gundam. "I haven't seen Kira and the others this eager to take the field since the last nuclear attack on the PLANTs. The Alliance really kicked itself in the balls with their attack on Eden Prime."

The GAT-X666S Revenant Gundam was essentially nothing more than a black-and-crimson colored copy of the ZGMF-X20A Strike Freedom Gundam. The Revenant, however, actually wielded a great deal more more firepower than the Strike Freedom. Not only did the Revenant Gundam possess all of the weapons of the Strike Freedom, but it also had a battleship caliber beam cannon attached to its left forearm, a pair of long-range beam cannons and a pair of anti-ship swords, with the twin long-range beam cannons and anti-ship swords being identical to the ones wielded by Celestial Being's own Twilight and Eclipse Gundams.

"Eager isn't really a term I would use for Kira, but he does seem much less reluctant than usual." Murrue replied, allowing a slight smile to cross her lips. "Although he does seem to be taking what happened to the colony rather personally."

"Yeah, he even went so far as to swap out his dual beam rifles with a pair of twin buster rifles from the Wing Zero's spares, not to mention two more beam sabers and a spare subflight lifter from the Infinite Justice. If I didn't know him better, I'd say the kid was in a killing mood." Waltfeld shrugged, not really being able to blame Kira for those feelings.

"The Archangel will place itself between the enemy Gundam and the Shipyard and Command districts." Murrue said, outlining the battle plan. "Meanwhile, the Eclipse, Infinite Justice and Twilight will engage at closer range, while the Akatsuki, Wing Zero and Divinity will provide support fire from the opposite side. Hopefully we can keep him turning around and too distracted to focus his firepower on one of us, or the rest of the base. Keep on your toes, everyone! This will not be a quick battle, judging from the capabilities of the enemy as we have seen so far. We're going to have to wear him down piece by piece, faster than he can wear us down the same way!"

The legendary warship Archangel had rebuilt by Celestial Being decades earlier, and had been assigned as a defensive unit for the Eden Prime colony, so it was only fitting that its first battle was in the defense of its new home port.

"What the hell does he think he's doing, anyway?" One of the gunnery officers muttered, staring at the dancing, cavorting figure of the Revenant on his target screens. "How can something so big move like that!"

"He won't be dancing for too much longer, not after we blow a hole through his chest big enough to park a semi-trailer in. Just don't let him get to you...he's just trying to unsettle us." Waltfeld smiled grimly.

"Incoming communications, blanketing all channels. I'm trying to filter it out, but it's a very powerful signal. Origin is the enemy Gundam..." Meyrin Hawke reported. Even as she did so, the scratchy, buzzing voice of the enemy Gundam pilot blasted out over the bridge speakers.

"About fucking time you showed up! What took you so long! Get over here so I can break that pretty little ship of yours into a hundred flaming pieces! Hurry! Hurry! HURRY!" The image of the Revenant on their screens nearly went into convulsions as it pranced around like a toddler throwing a tantrum, reaching imploringly towards them with both arms, although he didn't fire so much as a single round at them. "AHAHAHA! YES! YES! Closer! Come closer and BURN! Come closer, little Archangel, so that I may pluck off your wings and watch you wriggle in the dust before I stamp my heel down upon your neck and crush the life from your limp body! YAHAHAHAHA!"

"I am officially declaring myself unsettled." Meyrin volunteered in a shaky voice, swallowing hard as she fought to keep her hands steady on her console controls. "Who talks like that! What sort of...?"

"It sounds familiar for some reason. I know that I've been threatened like this before..." Waltfeld mused, as he fought down his own case of the willies. Such maniacal hatred, such disgusting joy...it was a loathsome voice, and damnably familiar. "But surely not...everyone who spoke like this is dead!"

"He does seem to know us, though. I think I would remember a pilot with a Gundam like this one." Murrue acknowledged. "The last time we encountered anything like this, it was the Fury, and it was piloted by Kira Hibiki, but he is gone. We all saw him get forced out of the timeline by the Divinity's temporal inversion cannon. Nothing could have lived to come back after being thrown back in time to when the Earth was still a ball of molten rock."

"Though I hate the necessity of this, I'm glad we're going to be going in together." Kira said as he clapped Athrun on the shoulder in a friendly manner, drawing him away from the last set of pre-flight diagnostics he was running. "As far as reprehensible tasks go, these no better company to do them in."

"Well, if it really bothers you that much, you could always just sit it out." Athrun replied, with a slight smile. "I'm sure that Lexi can handle the Divinity."

"Are you afraid of me because I possess the powers of God?" Kira asked quietly but earnestly. Athrun paused for a long moment, and didn't look over at him.

"Are you afraid of the concept of Death, Kira?" Athrun replied at last.

"Concept of Death?" Kira echoed.

"Yeah. The knowledge that, at some point, you are going to die, because that is what all humans do. Its inevitable, no matter how virtuous a person is, or how undeserving of dying. People die. Its a constant, and the only thing we can even somewhat control is the time and manner of it, and even then it isn't really up to us alone. Does that scare you?" Athrun clarified.

"Well, yeah, of course it does, but it's not something I dwell on all the time." Kira responded with a frown. After a long moment of silence, Kira headed back to the other hanger mandible and boarded the Divinity. While he wasn't satisfied with the result of his conversation, he was unable to progress any further if Athrun wasn't willing to talk with him.

He'd had the flight crews swap out the twin beam rifles for a pair of dual barreled buster rifles, and added another pair of beam sabers to his machine's backpack, much like the ones he'd used on the GAT-X105 Strike, the ZGMF-X10A Freedom and the ZGMF-X62S Freedom's Destiny. The reason for this was because, frankly, he was at the end of his rope when it came to war and the brutal tactics employed by all sides. The innocent civilians who'd been beheaded or left to die of exposure during the Earth Alliance's occoupation of Switzerland. The innocent civilians ZAFT had gassed at the Copernicus lunar colony. The Orb civilians who were crushed and pulped by the combined invasion forces of ZAFT and the Earth Alliance. The members of Orb Parliament who had been tortured and skinned alive, for no reason at all other than cruel amusement. The injecting of Cagalli, his own sister, with a drug known as Pink Passion, which may have permanently damaged her brain and personality. Not to mention the attempt on his own life. No, Kira was definitely not feeling anywhere close to his most merciful with regards to his enemies, not at all. They'd get their lumps, and like them, and be grateful he was proud of the fact that he was a much better person than they could even pretend to be.

Kira Hibiki watched them launch with avidity shining in his eyes, the Revenant's yellow eyes actually growing brighter and brighter as extra power flooded into them as Hibiki tuned up his cameras and other sensors, to not only take in the maximum amount of data, but also to permanently record these moments for posterity's sake. He wanted to be able to look back on this fight for the rest of his days, however long they might be. He ignored the pitiful remnants of the base defenders, and the slightly less pitiful yet still ultimately inadequate Celestial Being troops, as inconcsequential. They were bugs, and drones at that, he wanted to sink his teeth into some real meat. Hibiki was almost giddy with excitement as he watched the Celestial Being Gundams launch from the Archangel and speed towards him, like figures stepping forth from a grand painting. The entire scene was perfect...him on the ground, devastation expanding out around him in rings of smoke, rubble and fire, them in the sky, charging down towards him on streams of brilliant blue thruster flames and trails of glowing green GN particles, more valiant heroes come to slay the dragon, or feed his hunger trying.

Leading the pack, with its angelic wings spread wide, was the Divinity Gundam, with the Infinite Justice slightly behind and to the left. The two machines held guns in either hand, and they were already spitting hyphenated bolts of green and yellow energy at the Revenant, the precise, incredibly well aimed beam blasts boring into already darkened places on the crimson machine's hide, eating into the armor beneath the disabled or deactived beam shields, leaving glowing yellow and orange divots visible like distant stars against the blackness of the Revenant's form.

Hibiki was still basking in the arm glow their appearance had suffused his half dead heart with when he saw the rest of the Alliance forces erupt from hiding a few miles away, from behind a low range of hills that had been shielding them from line of sight sensors and accidental firepower from either the defending forces or the Revenant. Twenty Dagger Ls, ten Windams, the Calamity, the Forbidden and the Raider. A formidable force by any standard, and definitely enough to send new shafts of dismay and despair through the battered souls of the defenders. Even the Archangel veered wildly away from the Alliance reinforcements, like a great ungainly bird avoiding a suddenly erupting volcano. Celestial Being's strategy was visibly thrown into disarray, and they halted their relentless charge at the Revenant to take stock of this new development.

Hibiki frowned as he saw some of the Windams and Daggers begin firing upon the Archangel, Twilight and Akatsuki. Not that any of them were particularly skilled shots or pilots, but even a bunch of drooling idiots could overwhelm a Gundam Miester through enough numbers, if their mobile suits had a certain degree of base ability, and by the standards which Hibiki judged things, the pilots of the Eclipse, Twilight, Akatsuki and Chimera Gundams had never been in the top ranks of the Gundam Miesters. Hibiki lifted his left arm and sent a ravaging barrage of Gottfried bolts across a long line between the Alliance forces and the Celestial Being forces, blasting two Windams and a Dagger to molten pieces and bringing the remainder of the ambush forces to a screaming halt. "Back off! Those ones are mine!" Hibiki directed furiously.

"We were told to wipe them out first, while working together with you!" Dylan Cross replied from within the Calamity Gundam, his cowardly uncertainty plainly obvious with every word. Dylan Cross was a worm, even among humans, which Hibiki saw as no more than an entire race of worms. "They're the most dangerous..."

"I'M THE MOST DANGEROUS!" Hibiki corrected thunderously. As he pointed his left arm in the direction of the Calamity and the bulk of the Alliance forces. "Next one to take a shot at them learns why!"

"You would destroy your own allies?" Randall Jeffries protested from the Raider Gundam, his words harsh but his posture faltering as he stared Death in the arm. "You cannot prevail against them alone..."

"In the words of someone famous...I have not yet begun to fight!" Hibiki announced fiercely. "I was just larking around before. You guys can clean up my mess here, and be grateful I allow you to do that much! And you aren't my allies...at best I could call you lesser enemies, though meat slaves is probably closer to the truth. Once I get through with the rest of the people I need to kill around here, I'll do the bunch of you as well!"

"Foolish to admit your treachery so openly, Hibiki!" Randall spat back. "The Boss is listening..."

"You assume he did not know what sort of person he'd built this Gundam for?" Hibiki snorted in contempt. "If I destroy Celestial Being for him, I don't think he'll cry overly hard for you worthless fools. After all, I would have single-handedly achieved something all three of you, plus your reinforcements, were unable to do! Why should he need deadweight like you when he has me?"

Suddenly, a speeding dart-like missile, trailing a huge streamer of white-hot plasma energy, speared into the Revenant Gundam, connecting just over the groin region, the missile itself exploding and sending small shards of armor flying like chaff, a fraction of a second before the plasma wavefront arrived and drilled into him, chewing an orange-rimmed hole almost five meters across, impacting hard enough to give him a slight tremor. He was almost impressed, as he turned back to the Celestial Being Gundams, which had been far from idle during Hibiki's conversation.

"Nice try...but you're about five years too late to castrate me, ya bastards!" Hibiki snapped, insulted by their choice of target location. Seriously, what sort of bastard deliberately targeted the family jewels? Well, besides him...but it was okay for him to use any tactic available against his dastardly foes. He switched his left arm over towards where the Celestial Being Gundams were all bunched up, the Twilight charging up another large ball of plasma for the Eclipse to thread with its missile launcher, undeterred by the lack of any real effect from the last shot. Rail gun shells from the Akatsuki, Divinity, Infinite Justice and Wing Zero kicked up plumes of dirt around the Revenant's feet and legs, while missiles, barrages of beam bolts and hyper-impulse blasts lashed out at Hibiki like a sprinkler directed at a rhino. Hibiki's return volley of Gottfried fire hammered out at them, enough energy to scour the lot of them from existence with just the first few shots, not to mention the dozens behind those.

That is, if it ever reached them, which was not by any means an assured thing Hibiki discovered, as he watched his assault sizzle its way along the ground, each bolt carving out a glowing hole about two meters across in the ground, before his arm tracked up into and through the Celestial Being position. The beams didn't follow that course though, instead they bent and twisted like snakes veering away from a sudden bright light, encountering the Divinity Gundam, with all 36 of its DRAGOON units deployed in Geischmedig-Panzer mode, the reinforced defensive shielding being more than capable of handling even the repeated pounding from the Revenant. Kira even managed to catch a few blasts and sent them back in the Revenant's general direction, though his accuracy was down. Hibiki still flinched backwards slightly, his own firepower sailing off into the sky as his arm twitched. The Akatsuki and the Wing Zero wasted no time in hurling themselves out from behind the Divinity and splitting up, moving in on the Revenant from either side, while another missile and plasma streamer, courtesy of the Eclipse and Twilight, rocketed at Hibiki from directly ahead, the missile along with the trailing plasma ball, having been allowed to slip through a hole in the Divinity's defensive tapestry.

Hibiki's defensive weapons caught the missile this time, and blew it into oblivion almost a hundred meters short of him, but there was no stopping the now uncontrolled plasma streamer, which expanded and widened its effect without the guiding magnetic fields of the missile to corral it. As a result it was more a wave of energy than a stream that hit him, chewing a layer or two deep into the exposed armor across his chest. One or two of his defensive turrets cooked off, their overheated barrels melting in the onslaught, but it was nothing to cry about. Hibiki smiled, dropping the Revenant into an eager crouch as his enemies closed in on him from three directions.

"I don't like you." Kira Yamato furiously scowled, as the angelic form of the Divinity Gundam, its DRAGOONs once again docked on its wings, suddenly appeared directly in front of the Revenant Gundam, the two mobile suits nearly touching. "Why don't you just stay dead?" The amethyst-eyed man snarled, even as he freed a beam saber from his right hip, taking the weapon in his left hand as he ignited the pure white energy blade and slashed at the Revenant, aiming to slice the black-and-crimson machine in half. Much to Kira's shock and anger, however, the shimmering beam blade missed its target, as the Revenant Gundam boosted away at the last possible instant.

Kira clenched his fists around the Divinity's controls as the Revenant once again approached. His last battle with that black-and-red machine had resulted in four ruined Gundams, but not this time.

The Revenant stopped short and leveled off a series of cannons on its body, and with a flash, the DRAGOONs that had eviscerated the Archangel's Gundams arrayed themselves around the white Gundam. Kira tensed himself for the attack, and the guns opened fire.

With that, the Divinity's beam wings flashed to life, the angelic mobile suit lunged over the blasts, and it came down with a beam sword hack that slammed against the Revenant's beam shield. The Revenant backed away with another salvo from its mounted guns while the DRAGOONs spread out, but the Divinity darted through the shots and slashed the Revenant's beam rifles in two with one sweeping sword stroke.

The black Gundam flung aside its ruined rifles and charged back with a beam saber, and the two Gundams came together with a crash and a shower of sparks.

"They told me your new machine was a sight to behold." The pilot's voice growled through the cockpit speakers, and Kira Yamato blinked as he suddenly found himself face-to-face with a young man with a scarred face and a mechanical eye, face-to-face with his clone, face-to-face with Kira Hibiki. "I guess that's to be expected."

Kira Yamato scowled back and let the Divinity's engines respond, the angel-winged Gundam throwing the Revenant back with a burst of exhaust. The Revenant darted back and fired again with its guns, and the DRAGOONs filled the sky with beam fire. The Divinity snaked its way through the fire, the Revenant came down again with its saber upraised, and the two Gundams slammed together again.

The Divinity's engines hummed as the angelic mobile suit effortlessly wove its way through the Revenant's furious DRAGOON fire. Kira seized his chance to lunge through an opening in the barrage and slam his sword down onto the Revenant's beam saber. It backed away and swung for the Divinity's head; Kira smacked the blade aside and swung down again, stopped only by the Revenant's beam shield. The black Gundam shoved his sword aside and charged for a lethal stab, Kira jammed back the controls, grunted painfully at the sudden change in g-forces, and then jammed his sword down to spoil the Revenant's blow.

"I wasn't expecting this kind of fight." Hibiki said quietly, and Kira scowled up at his mismatched eyes.

"You didn't think I would just let you do this, did you?"

"You'd better. We're going to create a better world out of all this."

The Divinity surged forward with a blast of blue exhaust from its engines and hurled the Revenant back. "By gassing people to death?" Kira shrieked. "By killing millions of innocent civilians?"

In response, the Revenant backflipped away and showered the Divinity with firepower. Kira threw his Gundam through the openings and rocketed back up towards the Revenant for another vicious swordfight. "You don't have any room to be talking, Angel of Death." Hibiki shot back, intentionally using Kira's more terrifying nickname, and Kira clenched his fists angrily around the Divinity's joysticks. "I would have thought someone like you would be all about what we're doing. We're going to create a world where what you do isn't necessary."

"Well, yeah." Kira grumbled. "If you kill everyone, then there won't be anyone left for me, you stupid shit."

The Revenant flung the Divinity back. "It's not like that. It's something bigger." The Revenant pointed its saber at the Divinity combatively. "Come on. You were bred to be a living weapon for a bunch of corrupt politicians. I know that. You know that. What are you doing fighting on that world's behalf?"

Kira took the opportunity to glance around the battlefield and find a handful of red clouds rising up from the surface of the planet. "Then what do you call _this_?"

"_This_ is the only way to create a better world!" Hibiki cried, as the Revenant charged forward and the two Gundams locked blades again. The Revenant whirled around the Divinity; Kira turned and slammed his sword up against the Revenant's saber. "People only change when they have no choice. That was how I learned to pilot mobile suits. That was how you survived this far, wasn't it? And I can sense it from you. The pressure. You're a Newtype, like me, something more than a Coordinator, something more than an Ultimate Coordinater!" The Revenant rammed its knee into the Divinity's torso; it swept down and only a quick strike from the Divinity's beam shield saved Kira from the Revenant's sweeping saber stroke. "We're going to create a world where it's safe for people to become Newtypes. If we have to slaughter millions of people to do it, then so be it. The world we'll get will be worth it all."

The Revenant roared in for another blow, but Kira sent the Divinity diving to the side, rocketed back up behind the Revenant, ducked through its DRAGOON fire, and brought down a crashing downward sword hack against the Revenant's beam saber. "Nothing's worth killing millions of people!" He shot back. "If you want this to happen, you're going to have to go through me!"

Hibiki scowled. "That's what I thought." The Revenant surged forward, swarmed its DRAGOONs, and went back on the attack.

The Divinity's pure white beam sword flickered as it met the Revenant's own blood red beam saber. In the Divinity's cockpit, Kira ground his teeth as another blow was spoiled by the Revenant pilot's skillful swordsmanship, and he flung the black Gundam back to dodge another unnaturally precise volley of DRAGOON fire.

"If you won't stand aside, then I'll just have to _move_ you aside." Hibiki warned, and the Revenant fired off another salvo from its cannons. The Divinity darted through the blasts, streaked back down, and dove back into another swordfight with the black Gundam. "We didn't come here to let you stop us."

"Then what _did_ you come here for?" Kira shot back; the Divinity slammed down its sword onto the Revenant's blade, and the two Gundams rattled from the blow. Kira glowered down at the black Gundam.

A jolt of pressure shocked Kira's consciousness, emanating from the man inside the Revenant's armor. He blinked in disbelief as Hibiki's presence colored itself in: steely determination, icy resolve, a current of anger...and somewhere in there was buried remorse, horror, sorrow, hopelessness.

Kira struggled for words as the sparks flew from the locked blades. "You...even you know..."

Hibiki's eye flickered with emotion for a moment. "What?"

"Even you know that this is evil, and..." Kira said as his memories flashed back to Copernicus and that haunting cloud of death; his blood ran hot and the Divinity blazed crimson as it surged forward, angelic wings glowing with a pure white light. "That's even worse! You're doing this and you know it's evil!" The Divinity flung its black-armored enemy back with a furious swing. "Then you're just a monster!"

"I told you what we're here for!" Hibiki shot back. "We're here to secure the future."

"That's all just words!" Kira cut in, and with a crash, the Revenant and Divinity descended back into a furious swordfight as the Revenant's DRAGOONs danced around the dueling Gundams. "Not even you believe them!"

Hibiki's eye flashed with fury. "_You're wrong!_" The Revenant slammed back the Divinity's beam sword and went back on the offensive with roaring engines and blazing DRAGOON guns. "My cause is _not like that!_"

With a blazing saber, the Revenant stabbed forward towards the Divinity's cockpit; the angel-winged Gundam whirled around, effortlessly dancing through the DRAGOON blasts, and came back down with a sweeping overhead sword stroke against the Revenant's shield. Hibiki quickly backpedaled behind his DRAGOONs, but the Divinity effortlessly snaked its way through the web of firepower and the two Gundams returned to fencing.

"You say you're trying to build a world of Newtypes, and then a Newtype calls you out on the fact that what you say is nothing but a fucking lie!" Kira snarled furiously. "And then you reject it when someone achieves the understanding you said you wanted!" The Revenant swung for the Divinity's head; Kira parried the blow with a swift counterstrike. "You're just mad because I can understand you, and I can understand what a _monster_ you are!"

"You don't understand _anything!_" Hibiki screamed; the saber came down again, the sparks flew, and the Gundam's eyes flashed.

The wreckage of the Celestial Being Galaxy-class warship Pegasus, along with the wreckage of the Earth Alliance Minerva-class warship Odyssey, came pounding down onto the surface of Eden Prime. Athrun Zala carefully watched through the smoke and flames as Shinji Ikari's purple, green and black colored machine; the ZGMF/GAT-X01A Evangelion Unit 01, struggled to stay on its feet, its eyes flickering with a white light.

As the name suggested, the machine was, in fact, a heavily modified Evangelion Unit 01, which now possessed multiple advanced technologies, including Variable Phase Shift armor, an ultra-compact hyper-deuterion nuclear fission reactor, and the ability to utilize a set of custom-built chest and leg flyers, which had been deveploped by the recently merged ZAFT and Earth Alliance forces. These custom chest and leg flyers allowed the Evangelion Unit to replace damaged parts or to duplicate the appearance and abilities of other mobile suits. In addition, Evangelion Unit 01 also possessed a Berserker System, allowing the pilot to push the Evangelion into a semi-controllable berserker state at will, and even with all of these modifications, Evangelion Unit 01 could still utilize its AT field.

"There's no way you can stop all these forces." Athrun warned. "If you surrender to us, we'll show you the mercy you won't get from the new Alliance."

Fury flashed across Shinji's face. "_Mercy?_" He screamed, even as the purple beast known as Evangelion Unit 01 let out an ear-splitting roar and surged forward with its shimmering yellow beam sword at the ready. "You mean to tell me that you're going to join forces with those _sub-humans_ against _your own people?_"

Athrun jammed his glowing green beam saber forward to stop Unit 01's sword stroke. "You haven't been my people for a long, long time."

"_You traitor!_" Shinji screamed, and Evangelion Unit 01 surged forward again, its eyes changing color from bright white to blood red. "Mark my words, Zala; you will regret bowing down to the Naturals! They don't want to coexist with us; they want to destroy us! And you'll hand us all to them, and we'll be destroyed, and maybe then you'll understand why your father put us on the right path!"

At that, Athrun felt his blood run hot as Evangelion Unit 01 charged forward again; he slammed the purple mobile suit back with a hard saber swing, ducked against its counterattack, and then lunged up with his saber to plant the blade through the beast's chest.

"It's a shame you had to be so blinded by rage." He shot back, as Evangelion Unit 01's eyes went dark. "But I'm not letting you follow the path my father wanted."


	120. The Face of the Enemy

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 120**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

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"Evil always finds a way back from death." Hibiki smirked from the cockpit of the Revenant Gundam. "And the sort of Evil I am, the avatar of the darkness that is hidden within every human soul, can never be vanquished, I can only be sealed away temporarily. My seals have been broken, and I have returned! The world shall burn to mere cinders beneath my feet, and I shall paint my face with the blood of the innocent, and grease my hands with the innards of the powerful! I shall reforge this world in fire and blood, until the blade of humanity finally shines with a brilliant deadliness, and I will do so as many times as necessary." Hibiki promised fervently. "I am Kira Hibiki, and that is my destiny."

"You also never shut the fuck up!" Kira Yamato snarled from the Divinity's cockpit, punctuating each word with a blast from his beam rifle.

Rattling under a near miss from a Laurasia-class frigate's guns, the Archangel plowed ahead with its CIWS blazing and missiles bursting into fiery clouds around the ship's sloping prow. Murrue watched the enemy ship's lime-green hull through the smoke and flames, as the enemy ship wheeled around with its guns swiveling to face the Archangel.

"Captain, Nazca-class approaching at five o'clock." Lacus spoke up from the sensor console.

Murrue eyed the Laurasia for a moment and saw her chance. "Gottfrieds, target the Laurasia to port and fire!"

The Archangel sent out four blazing green beams that smashed into the Laurasia's dorsal surface and blew off most of its large weapons. Murrue sat back and turned her attention towards the auxiliary screen, where the Nazca was angling its guns for a counterattack.

"Cagalli, descend!" The Archangel groaned as it veered down towards the surface of Eden Prime and the Nazca's shots sizzled by overhead. "Meyrin, send Kira to finish off that Laurasia before it comes about! Cagalli, turn us back around; Slegehammer missiles, prepare to fire!"

Up ahead, the Divinity shot by with a burst of exhaust and poured plasma cannon fire into the crippled Laurasia's center, and with a thundering explosion, the ship cracked in two. The Archangel swung its prow around as the Nazca above pulled up, beam cannons blazing.

"Incoming fire is too thick!" Cagalli shouted. "We're not going to get through!"

"I will!" Kira's voice cut in from Meyrin's console, and with a flash, the Divinity spiraled up through the Nazca's barrage, fired back, and ripped off its portside beam cannon.

Murrue leaned forward. "Gottfrieds, target the Nazca's centerline and fire!"

"Now this is more like it!" Kira cackled as the Divinity elegantly spiraled through a Laurasia-class frigate's furious barrage of beam blasts and rail gun shells in mobile armor mode. He stopped short and yanked back on the controls as a Blaze ZAKU Warrior lunged up before him and unleashed a swarm of missiles. The Divinity shook slightly as the missiles slammed against its AT field, a few of the projectiles penetrating the orange barrier only to slam against either the angelic machine's glowing green GN field or its bright blue beam shields. "Hey, damnit, that's not fair!"

The ZAKU plunged through the smoke, beam tomahawk upraised, but Kira seized his chance to jerk the mobile suit to the right, letting the ZAKU catch mere afterimages with its blade, and before it could follow up he transformed the Gundam into its mobile suit mode, speared the ZAKU through the cockpit on a beam rifle shot, and took off again.

"Kira, frigate on point to port, give it some pain!" Meyrin spoke through the cockpit speakers.

Kira paused for a moment to regain his bearings and then flashed a grin as he caught his target. "On it!" The Divinity transformed and charged again, danced around the blasts from the enemy warship. The crosshairs passed over his target, the Divinity let loose a burst of beam fire that plowed through the Laurasia's prow and blasted out its bridge. Kira jammed back the controls and pulled the Divinity into a steep climb. "Archangel, all yours!"

A thundering wave of Gottfried fire sizzled by underneath the Divinity and slammed through the Laurasia's center, and vast arms of fire ripped the warship apart in a shuddering explosion.

Shinn Asuka blinked in surprise as a wave of pink beam fire suddenly ripped apart one of the ZAKUs up ahead. The three GuAIZs darted away in surprise, and the black form of the GAT-X105E+AQM/E-X09S Strike Noir rocketed into the fight, its beam rifle blazing. The GAT-X105E+AQM/E-M1 Strike E IWSP and the GAT-X105+P202QX Strike Gundam IWSP followed close behind the Strike Noir, both unleashing a salvo of their own as the GuAIZs pulled back behind their beam shields, while another ZAKU fell to the barrage.

"What the hell is this?" Shinn started, backing the Eclipse away, with the Twilight at his side, as the Strike Noir and its two allies savaged the ZAKUs.

"Are they...helping?" Luna asked quietly.

"I can't tell." Shinn answered. "But let's get back in case they aren't."

The Eclipse vaulted up into the air with the Twilight and backpedaled as the ZAKUs crumpled under the Strike Noir's blows. Shinn blinked in surprise as an image of a young man with hazel eyes and silver hair appeared on his auxiliary screen.

"Don't think we're on your side now, Shinn Asuka." Sven Cal Bayan warned with a scowl from the cockpit of the Strike Noir. "Don't ever think that."

Shinn arched his eyebrow. "Of course not." The Eclipse's eyes flashed as it and the Twilight slipped away. Taking advantage of the sudden appearance of the three Gundams, the Archangel once again docked in the Excalibur's hanger bay.

A current of ice ran through Captain Robert Glasgow's veins as the blackness of space itself suddenly belched out a torrent of neon green energy blasts, spearing the Alliance Archangel-class warship Lucifer and causing it to break apart, fire spilling out of its innards, incinerating nearly a dozen mobile suits gathered around it. The bridge of the Minerva-class warship Fortuna fell silent, until it was rocked again by the destruction of the fleet's second remaining Nazca-class ship.

"Well, that kind of fucks us over." Commander James Graves said quietly.

Glasgow leaned forward. "Are you telling me that sixty percent of my task force was destroyed here?" He slammed his fist down onto the command chair's armrest. "Order all units to retreat at once! Maximum speed!"

Graves glanced up skeptically. "Marshal Hibiki won't be pleased."

"Damn Marshal Hibiki!" Glasgow roared. "This operation was a complete failure! Get us out of here!" He wheeled around on Graves with rage burning in his eyes. "And _you!_ Where were your vaunted strategies _this_ time, when it _mattered?_"

"I don't see why you're blaming me." Graves shot back. "I did my job; your job was to provide the protection."

The ZAFT captain angrily whirled back towards the front and watched as the Alliance Columbus-class warship swung around to make its escape.

"Well, this is new." Meyrin said as the shockwave rattled the Excalibur ever so slightly.

In the captain's chair, Murrue Ramius looked up at the grizzled man on the auxiliary screen, the man in the black uniform of the Phantom Pain.

"I must say, you're not what I was expecting in the captain of the ship that's given me so much trouble." He said sardonically.

Murrue arched her eyebrow and touched the visor of her peaked cap. "What's the purpose of this transmission, captain...?"

"Ian Danilov." The man supplied. "The purpose is simple. Take a look at your tactical map. About half of the surviving Earth Alliance and ZAFT fleet is in full retreat; the other half is trapped here with no escape, and is currently about to get completely wiped out." He sat back. "Now, as I'm sure you're well aware, I'm under orders to destroy you on sight. But I think we can agree that this task force is the greater threat, and its escaped survivors need to be eliminated. So, if I were to not see you..."

"How do I know you aren't going to chase us down anyway?" Murrue responded.

"You don't. And I make no guarantees." Danilov smirked conspiratorially. "So, consider this a head start."

Murrue eyed the man on the monitor carefully for a moment. "Don't think you're going to have it easy if you find us again."

"I'm sure. And, before you go, would you care to indulge me and tell me the name of my adversary?" Danilov broke into a sportsman's grin. "Fair is fair, after all."

Memories returned in Murrue's mind of the Orb civilians who were crushed and pulped by the combined invasion forces of ZAFT and the Earth Alliance, but if this was the same captain, then the same captain who had ordered the invasion was the one ostensibly giving her an avenue to escape this battle and offering to finish off the forces which were still remaining. And once she got away, the Excalibur could easily hunt down the remaining ships of this task force and then slip away. The man in command during the invasion of Orb couldn't be this same man.

And yet here he was, asking for the name of his adversary. Asking for the name of this ship's captain.

"Ramius." She said at last.

Danilov smirked back. "Then I look forward to our next battle, Captain Ramius."

The screen went dark, the tension on the bridge rippled, and Murrue glanced back at the main screen. "Meyrin, recall our mobile suits and inform the Katsuragi. Cagalli, after the retreating ships. We have a mission to complete."

It was a mighty armada. Five Lesseps-class and fifteen Petrie-class land battleships sailed across the desert sands, and each ship's deck was loaded down with armies of waiting mobile suits. More mobile suits charged forward among the sands, and the air was filled with Celestial Being fighters and helicopters and even more mobile suits. And standing on the deck of this massive army's flagship was the Divinity Gundam, staring forward impassively, waiting.

Arrayed two miles before the Celestial Being force was an enormous Alliance base. The Alliance troops had entrenched themselves in the city of Seattle, and had created a massive fortress bristling with guns and packed with military hardware of their own.

Kira Yamato stared forward apprehensively at the waiting enemy through the eyes of the Divinity Gundam. He was in command of this massive army, his job was to capture this base, which was the final stronghold of the Alliance in the United States of America, and pave the way to a lightly-defended Alliance naval base on the shore, whose destruction would completely remove the Alliance from Celestial Being's terrestrial ally. Behind him, he had hundreds of mobile suits and thousands of Celestial Being soldiers and crew, before him, he had hundreds of mobile suits and thousands of Alliance soldiers and crew. He would lead his men as the generals of old did, riding at the head of the battle, in shining armor, plunging headfirst into the same inferno as his soldiers. And before him, the Alliance troops were hunkered down, patiently waiting for the Celestial Being forces to enter their range.

Kira looked back, at his soldiers. The mobile suits themselves were perfect warriors, their faces betrayed no fear, only a steadfast determination to reach the battlefield. The soldiers inside were battle-hardened veterans who knew no fear, and knew instead how to fight and win.

_'Unfortunately, the enemy is just as battle-hardened and fearless as we are.'_ Kira thought to himself as he looked back at the enemy.

All further rumination was cut off as the Alliance's artillery opened fire. The shots splashed down into the sand in front of the charging army. Kira narrowed his eyes, the Alliance troops weren't aiming to hit. Sure enough, another salvo thundered forward, and this time the flying shells took down several BuCUEs, ZAKUs and GOUFs.

The army pressed on undeterred, and Kira sucked up his breath. It was now or never.

Before him, the Alliance forces fired off yet another salvo, and missiles came swarming in. The attack was beginning. The Lesseps-class which the Divinity was riding on quaked under a missile hit. Kira furrowed his brow and yelled out one simple order. "All troops, charge!"

The words had barely left his lips before everything started going to hell.

The Alliance troops before him opened fire with a salvo the likes of which Kira had never seen. Hundreds of canisters slammed down in front of the charging mobile suits, and as Kira realized too late what was going on, a huge pall of smoke rose over the battlefield, obscuring everything. Kira opened his mouth, hoping to order his men to open fire before it was too late, but a volley of beam fire and missiles slammed head-on into the Celestial Being units.

Kira watched in horror as a hundred pilots died simultaneously.

"Commander Yamato!" Someone shouted, through the roar of battle. "What are your orders?"

Kira took a breath and steeled himself.

"All mobile suits advance at full speed!" He shouted.

The Divinity took off with a blast.

For a few moments, there was nothing but smoke, but then the smoke parted and Kira could see before him the enemy base, guns blazing. He cut down a handful of missiles with a burst of CIWS fire and stormed through the smoke towards the base.

Down below, the Alliance's Windams opened fire on the charging Gundam with their beam rifles, and Kira sent the Divinity diving towards the sand. He returned fire as the Divinity twisted through a maze of beams, aiming for the Windams' heads.

Kira gasped in surprise as the Windams expertly deflected the Divinity's shots with their shields. They turned their firepower on an approaching squad of BuCUEs, and a moment later there were five more dead Celestial Being pilots.

_'That wouldn't have happened if...'_ Kira thought as a powerful artillery shell hit the Divinity in the chest, knocking it out of the air. Kira shook his head and opened fire with a full burst from the Divinity's weapons, aiming again for arms and legs and heads.

And the Windams dove out of the way, letting the Divinity's shots fly by harmlessly. Kira fired again, but again the Windams dodged, and their combined firepower brought down another Celestial Being mobile suit squad in a fiery blaze.

_'They...they'll keep killing...unless...'_ Kira squeezed his eyes shut. He couldn't! Those Alliance pilots had families of their own! They were fighting on the wrong side, they were killing, but for that they didn't deserve to die!

The Divinity was rocked again as more missiles came down around it, and Kira quickly hunkered down behind the Divinity's GN field, beam shields and even the physical shield on the machine's right forearm. The Windams returned their attention to him, pouring beam rifle fire onto his glowing GN field, some of the shots actually penetrating the glowing energy field only to harmlessly impact on his bright blue shield, and Kira leapt up into the air, desperately dodging their shots.

An errant missile plowed into the Divinity's face, sending the angel-winged Gundam plummeting towards the ground, and Kira screamed.

There was a brightly glowing violet seed, veined with gold, and suddenly, everything was clear.

A squad of GINNs and another of ZAKUs was charging towards the Windams, machine guns and beam rifles blazing, and the Windams took up their own beam rifles to return fire. The Divinity slashed down into their ranks with a storm of beam fire, ripping the Windams' guns and arms off. The Divinity charged forward towards the base, dodging missile emplacements and spewing weapons fire into the Alliance lines, blowing away mobile suit heads and arms and legs.

"No more of this!" Kira screamed, as the Divinity blazed with a blood red light, its angelic wings glowing pure white.

The Divinity drew its beam saber and charged again, disarming a pair of Windams as he continued to storm towards the base, a hurricane of afterimages following in his wake. Gunfire rose to meet him, but the Celestial Being forces were right behind him, breaking through the hole the Divinity had torn in the enemy lines, and the battle turned into the insanity of a no-holds-barred mobile suit brawl. Kira himself continued into the base, slicing apart any enemy that rose to oppose him.

A pair of Windams were standing near a closed-off mobile suit hangar, beam rifles blazing. Kira let out a yell and charged, boosting between them and slashing both their arms off, flying towards the hangar,

And a moment later, a massive red blast slashed across the Divinity's path. Kira slammed on the brakes, and the Divinity lurched backwards. An alarm sounded, and Kira threw the Divinity's physical shield up to deflect a beam rifle shot, and barely had he done that when a blue claw came flying at him, and only a timely duck saved him. The Divinity landed with a crash, and Kira looked around for his attackers.

"What the...is that the Strike Gundam?" Kira rethorically asked himself.

Standing before him were three Strike Gundams, all three sporting one of the Strike's distinctive Striker packs. Kira stared with an edge of apprehension at them. The Launcher Strike raised its cannon and fired, and Kira leapt up into the air, letting its shot tear by beneath his feet, but instantly the Aile Strike was upon him with its beam rifle. Jetting to the side, Kira was suddenly under attack from the Sword Strike, slamming its anti-ship sword against the Divinity's shield. The Divinity went staggering back, and a moment later the Aile Strike charged into Kira's face with its beam saber, forcing it back even further.

"They're so damn fast!" Kira shouted, even as the Launcher Strike opened fire, forcing him to dive to the side, only to have the Sword Strike come down on him with its sword. Barely deflecting the blow with the Divinity's physical shield, Kira watched out of the corner of his eye, as the Aile Strike took aim with its beam rifle. His eyes widened.

With a yell, the Divinity leapt up and kicked the Sword Strike in the face, knocking it away. Without a moment to spare, the Divinity smacked away the Aile Strike's beam shot with its beam saber, and boosted upwards to dodge the Launcher Strike's shot. A blast from the Divinity's weapons created a cloud of smoke around the Launcher Strike, and with a single beam saber stroke, the Launcher Strike's left arm and cannon went spiraling away. A powerful kick to the right arm crushed the weapons pod, and with one last kick to the face, the Divinity sent the disarmed Launcher Strike sprawling into the dust.

The Sword and Aile Strikes charged, and Kira leapt above them. He dove down into the Sword Strike's face, kicking the anti-ship sword out of its grasp. With a powerful overhead saber slash, he cut off the Sword Strike's left arm at the shoulder and left leg at the knee, and the damaged mobile suit collapsed to the ground.

Beam shots flashed around the Divinity, and Kira deflected them with the shield. The Aile Strike charged in with its beam saber drawn, and slammed it against the Divinity's shield. Kira grunted as the Divinity rattled, and saw an opening, he swung the Aile Strike's saber aside with the Divinity's shield, and impaled the Aile Strike's head on the Divinity's saber. A kick to the chest sent the headless Strike stumbling away, and a plasma cannon volley blew off the Strike's arms and Aile Striker. The helpless mobile suit collapsed forwards, and Kira let out a sigh of relief.

"Commander Yamato!" A voice cried. Kira glanced to his left, finding the panicked face of a Celestial Being officer. "We have to retreat! We can't sustain anymore casualties!"

"What?" Kira exclaimed. "What do you mean casualties? I just disabled..."

The Divinity took off, and Kira gasped in horror. The Alliance forces had charged forward while he had been fighting the Strikes, and Kira immediately recognized many of the attacking Windams as ones he had disabled, they lacked guns or arms or heads, but charged forward anyways with beam sabers or fallen comrades' weapons. Kira stared in disbelief as the soldiers he thought he had taken out of the fight dove back into it.

"Commander Yamato!" The officer shouted. "You can't stay there! We're pulling back!"

Kira swallowed a lump in his throat and the Divinity took off for the leading _Lesseps_ as it pulled back. In a flash, he landed on the deck and demanded a report on the situation.

"The Alliance forces counterattacked!" The officer exclaimed hastily. "They let most of our mobile suits pass right by and brought the fight to-" He was cut off by a scream, and Kira's eyes widened as a Windam missing its right arm, a Windam Kira had disabled, landed in front of the Lesseps' bridge and slashed it out with a beam saber.

Kira stared at the Windam, shocked. He had disabled it. He had taken it out of the battle. But it had returned, and now those Celestial Being troops on the bridge of that ship were dead, because Kira had not killed the pilot of that Windam.

An alarm went off, and Kira turned. He gasped in astonishment as he found the damaged Sword Strike charging at him with its anti-ship sword drawn and held in front of it. He tried to move, but shock had paralyzed him, and all he could do was stare.

The anti-ship sword plunged into the Divinity's chest, and everything went black.


	121. A Soldier's Duty

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 121**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

Kira Yamato took a deep breath, struggling to calm himself. He was here again, inside the Divinity Gundam, standing tall on the deck of a Lesseps-class land battleship as Celestial Being went charging forward under a dark, clouded sky. His army, spread out behind him, was once again driving towards the Alliance base and its steadfast defenders.

This time, however, it would be different.

Somewhere in there, Kira remembered, were three Strike Gundams, all designed to complement each other's fighting strengths and cover each other's weaknesses. They had defeated him last time. They would not do so again.

The Alliance fired their volley of ranging shots again, the army charged ahead anyways. The Alliance fired its second salvo, once again a handful of mobile suits went down in flames. The Divinity stepped forward and activated its wings with a flash.

"All troops, CHARGE!" Kira called out.

The Divinity took off with a flash, a physical shield secured to its right forearm, a beam rifle in its left hand.

The Celestial Being army charged behind him, but Kira ignored them. He didn't need them, he could destroy this base all by himself, and that he would. He armed the beam rifle and charged towards the lines of Windams.

The memories came flashing back, of the Windams that continued to fight, even after Kira had disabled them. He narrowed his eyes. They would continue to fight no matter what Kira did. He had to destroy them.

The Divinity landed with a crash. The Windams raised their rifles to open fire, Kira preempted them with a devastating full burst that smashed through the entire squad and wiped it out in a blaze. Kira watched the explosion painfully, it had to be done, he told himself. He looked up ahead, at the second line of Windams, and lunged into the air over their heads, showering them with beam shots and blasting them apart one by one.

A BuCUE came charging over a burnt-out Windam, firing its railguns wildly. A Windam across from the first line of anti-tank trenches lined up for a finishing shot; the Divinity rocketed into the Windam's line of fire and shot it down with a rifle shot before it could fire. Kira grunted as the Divinity vaulted into the air, roaring up over a beam rifle volley. He glanced over his shoulder; the land battleships were opening fire, tearing apart the Alliance defenses at the front. He looked back down at the Windams, the fight was progressing as smoothly this time as it had last time. But this time it had to be different. Kira steeled himself and took off, roaring down into the Windams' ranks. They turned their rifles on him in surprise; Kira narrowed his eyes, as the seed burst before him, and swept down towards the hapless Windams, firing a full burst to wipe out five Windams before they ever knew what hit them. The Windams backed away; Kira roared over their heads, firing into their backs, and drew a beam saber in his right hand to attack the second line of mobile suits.

The BuCUEs tore their way through the hole in the Alliance ranks, firing a volley of railgun shells into the third line before the Windams could react. Kira swept down into their confused ranks, firing a full burst that took down another seven Windams. He took off again before they could return their firepower to him, and the invading Celestial Being units promptly cut them apart while they were distracted.

Kira looked up ahead, towards a particular mobile suit hangar. They had been in there the last time. He charged, cutting down the two Windams feebly guarding it, and landed with a crash. The red beam came at him again, he skirted aside, letting it tear past,

With a crash, the Aile Strike, Sword Strike, and Launcher Strike landed before him.

Kira clenched his fists around the Divinity's controls. _'This time...this time I won't let them beat me!'_

The Launcher Strike opened fire again, Kira dodged again, cutting down a pair of incoming missiles as he did. Immediately, the Sword Strike came sweeping in behind him, he backflipped over its head, kicking it in the back as he did and sending it staggering forward. Landing with a crash, he raised his beam rifle to pick it off quickly, only to have the Aile Strike try to try to slash his rifle in two with its beam saber. Kira darted backward, switching to his beam saber, as the Aile Strike followed up with another swing, Kira deployed his plasma cannons and railguns, but was forced to dodge again as the Launcher Strike fired another shot from its hyper Eclipse cannon.

"Not again..." Kira growled. He lined up for a full burst, but the Sword Strike came barreling in, forcing the Divinity back with a winnowing overhead sword slash. It fired its rocket anchor up at the Divinity, Kira smacked it aside with his shield and took aim at the Sword Strike, but beam rifle fire from the Aile Strike forced him back again. He ducked underneath another shot fro the Launcher Strike, but immediately the Aile Strike came back down with its saber. Kira drew his beam saber, deflecting the Aile Strike's saber with his own, but the Aile Strike held him locked in midair. The Launcher Strike leapt up behind the Divinity, leveling off its cannon to finish the fight, Kira's eyes narrowed as he saw his chance, the seed burst.

Pushing off the Aile Strike's shield with the Divinity's legs, Kira spiraled through the air with a scream, and slammed his saber into the Launcher Strike's cockpit. The Launcher Strike exploded, Kira slammed back down onto the ground, sinking to one knee and ducking a beam rifle shot from the Aile Strike. The Sword Strike hurled its beam boomerang at him, Kira screamed as he charged forward, slashing the boomerang in half. As it exploded in midair, Kira charged, the Sword Strike came streaking towards him, swinging its sword horizontally. Kira ducked under the swing and slashed the Sword Strike in two at the waist, grimacing as it exploded behind him.

The Aile Strike landed with a crash behind the Divinity, firing its rifle, Kira whirled around, deflecting the shot with his shield and firing back with his plasma cannons and railguns. The Aile Strike jetted aside, but a railgun shell clipped its rifle, sending it spiraling out of the Aile Strike's hand. The Aile Strike drew its saber, charging towards the Divinity, Kira narrowed his eyes. The two Gundams met with a crash, the Aile Strike's saber came down onto the Divinity's shield, the Divinity's saber onto the Aile Strike's shield. Kira scowled, seizing his chance, and deployed the plasma cannons,

With a thunderous explosion, the deed was done.

The Divinity straightened up, deactivating and stowing the beam saber before then freeing the second beam rifle from its right hip. Kira cast a wary glance at the Celestial Being lines as they poured over the base.

Suddenly, a hail of beam weapons peirced both of Kira's beam rifles, causing them to explode.

"Where the hell did those beams come from?" Kira yelled as he instantly dropped the now useless weapons, watching them explode a fraction of a second later.

"Four mobile suits approaching from the east!" Lexi's voice announced as the image of the machines automatically appeared on one of the sub-screens, and when it did Kira's jaw hit the floor.

The four machines which were approaching him were ones which everyone instantly reconigized; the ZGMF-X09A Justice Gundam, the ZGMF-X10A Freedom Gundam, the ZGMF-X19A Infinite Justice Gundam, and finally, the ZGMF-X20A Strike Freedom Gundam.

The Strike Freedom launched its DRAGOONs with a flash and opened fire.

Kira growled as the Divinity ignited its Wings of Light and effortlessly slalomed through a wave of beam fire with a blur of afterimages. The Freedom squeezed off a handful of beam shots, even as the Strike Freedom combined its rifles and fired. The Divinity dodged again and stormed forward, but another burst of fire from the Strike Freedom's DRAGOONs stopped it.

"You can't win a fight against a god!" Kira roared, as the searing energy blasts unexpectedly bent away from the Divinity Gundam, soaring over the angel-winged mobile suit before slamming into the ground behind it, kicking up a large cloud of dust which quickly obsured the angelic machine.

As the huge cloud of dust and debris hung over the battlefield, a loud hiss and the clang of moving metal echoed through the valley. As the dust and debris finally cleared, the Divinity Gundam was revealed to be sporting a black-and-red color scheme, and a large mouth filled with pure white teeth.

Meanwhile, somewhere under the surface of the Pacific Ocean, onboard the Celestial Being Archangel-class warship Archangel, Canard Pars looked up from his drawing to examine Lacus's hair, he then resumed working on his drawing. Orga Sabnak, Clotho Buer, and Andrew Waltfeld were playing cards at a nearby table. Shani Andras was elsewhere. A moment later, Canard looked up, only to see that Lacus was gone, and with a sigh, he focused on his memory of what she'd looked like and started working again.

"Shani?" Lacus asked. Shani didn't look up. "Aren't you lonely?" Shani glanced over his shoulder and nodded. Lacus smiled as she sat down beside him. "Why aren't you with the others?" She asked, curious.

Shani sighed and looked away. Lacus frowned as she looked back down to the hangar floor.

"I'm not safe around people. One day, almost...seven years ago, a girl called me a freak for having differently colored eyes. And I...lost control. I punched her and punched her, and eventually I heard a snap, and she went limp. They put in jail, a life sentence. With no chance of parole. So, I avoid people and don't listen to anybody." Unseen to Lacus, Shani's eyes teared up. "The girl, Muldie, I kinda liked her. She'd only been joking. And I killed her."

Meanwhile, on the bridge, multiple alarms began to sound. "Ma'am!" Arnold shouted. "Torpedoes incoming!"

"What? Dammit!" Murrue pressed a button on her chair. "All bridge crew, report to the bridge, mobile suit pilots to your mobile suits! Prepare to surface!"

Lacus ran into the elevator as Shani climbed into the GAT-X252 Forbidden Gundam, wearing his old pilot suit with its ridiculous helmet. The Forbidden Gundam was quickly moved to the launch catapult.

Auel grinned as his ZGMF-X31S Abyss Gundam plunged into the water in mobile armor mode. He fired a volley of torpedoes, but a single mobile suit appeared between the Archangel and the Abyss, blocking the torpedoes. The mobile suit then lunged at Auel, its scythe held back. Auel quickly surfaced, popping over the attack. But, he was suddenly thrown backwards as a pair of rail gun shells slammed into his machine. The Forbidden converted to its close combat mode and fired its beam cannon at Abyss.

Auel dived, the water blocking the beam cannon, only to resurface and fire his own beam cannon. But the Forbidden's shields moved into place, and the beam blast bent away from the green-and-white mobile suit.

"What the hell?" Auel asked.

Suddenly, a black mobile suit, clearly the GAT-X207 Blitz Gundam, was in front of the Archangel's bridge, its shield raised, aiming multiple missiles at the bridge. Suddenly, the GAT-X370 Raider Gundam shot from the Archangel's left launch bay and wrapped the chain of its Mjolnir hammer around the black mobile suit's neck before then throwing it into the water.

"Don't let up!" A CGuE and GuAIZ R were relentlessly firing their beam rifles at the monstrous mobile suit. They weren't alone. A whole army of mobile suits was firing from the outskirts of Berlin, into the center of the city. Suddenly, dozens of green beams shot from the city center, carving into the streets, cutting through the mobile suits like a hot knife through butter. The beam fire suddenly stopped, and every street within Berlin lit up from the collective explosion of over a hundred mobile suits.

Lord Djibril smiled at the screens projecting the image of the GFAS-X1 Destroy Gundam as it rampaged through Berlin, Germany. "So, Gentlemen, what do you think?"

"Djibril, why are you attacking Eurasia?" One of the nobles asked, causing Djibril to smile to himself as he turned in his chair.

"Because Eurasia sided with the coordinators." The leader of Blue Cosmos replied. "We had multiple reports of civilians uprising against us while ZAFT attacked. This is simply punishment."

"Djibril, why not use this weapon to attack the PLANTs?" Another one of the nobles asked.

"We will, gentlemen, we will. There are more units than just this one." The nobles looked at each other nervously.

"Djibril, what if the Destroy is taken out?" Another of the nobles asked, after a moment had passed in near silence, the only sound being that from the screens which displayed the Destroy's rampage.

Djibril waved off the question. "That is quite impossible, I assure you."

Shinn Asuka growled as he drew both of the Eclipse Gundam's anti-ship swords, one standard anti-ship sword and one quantum crystal anti-ship sword, connecting the two blades before then boosting at the Destroy. The giant mobile suit swatted the Eclipse away, knocking it to the ground. It looked straight at the Eclipse and fired its face-mounted cannon. Shinn flipped the Eclipse, then ground to a halt, the beam striking the ground.

'Everyone! Target the buildings around it! Bury it!' Athrun cried. Eclipse, Twilight, Dreadnought, Justice, and Infinite Justice fired on the nearby buildings. The skyscrapers fell atop the Destroy, dust and rubble flying all over the place, and forming a cloud of dust and debris. When the dust cleared, the Destroy was buried under the rubble.

Suddenly, the rubble started moving. within the cockpit of the ZGMF-X09A Justice Gundam, Meyrin Hawke's eyes went wide. "How can it still move?"

A trio of beam cannon blasts erupted from the pile of rubble, before the mountain of concrete and steel exploded, lighting up the battlefield.

Athrun couldn't look away. "What the hell is this thing?" The Destroy raised it arms, launching both of them. Athrun dodged an array of beams from the flying arms.

Nero Blitz rushed at Athrun, a beam saber ignited from its Trikeros shield. Athrun slashed through the suit's legs, then blasted off its arms with the Infinite Justice's beam cannons, then spun and boosted at the Destroy. Rosso Aegis put itself between Freedom and the Destroy. Forbidden attacked the Rosso Aegis, cutting it in half, then boosting out of the way of a beam cannon blast. Athrun dodged the blast, then blocked a beam from one of the Dragoon pod arms, then slashed it in half.

Canard activated the Dreadnought's beam sabers and sliced through the Destroy's right leg, just as the machine's triple beam cannons fired at the Minerva.

"Evade!" Talia cried. The Minerva moved just enough to dodge the blasts, the nearest one grazing its twin-barrel Tristian beam cannons. "Fire!" The blue and red Tanhauser blast struck the Destroy's shield and literally stopped. The positron beam began to fade, and just as it faded away, the air around the blast exploded, creating a massive shockwave and knocking the Eclipse, Twilight, Dreadnought, Justice, and Infinite Justice to the ground.

Blue arcs of electricity began to leap across the Destroy's Phase Shift Armored hide. Shinn gritted his teeth and boosted forward, anti-ship sword drawn back, the quantum crystal blade aimed for the massive mobile suit. The Eclipse drove the point of its combined anti-ship sword into the Destroy's main cannon, just as the weapons began to fire.

The Destroy fell backwards, shaking the ground with a sound like that of a nuclear bomb. The Destroy's face-mounted beam cannon fired as it fell, a single blue and red beam against the night sky. Finally, the beam died and Shinn landed atop the Destroy, smiling in amazement.


	122. The Stormhounds

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 122**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

As the Stormhounds, Celestial Being's elite Spec Ops team, stood before him, a gold-veined, purple seed dropped through the roiling darkness of Kira Yamato's mind, before finally detonating with an electrifying, pure white light that seemed to paralyze the entire universe.

Hope Yamato's pistols barked out a pair of shots which seemed to leave the barrel of her twin weapons in slow motion, slow enough that Kira could watch the bullets move, but he was already well away from her point of aim, flying down the stairs, barely touching them, as he bulldozed his shoulder into the chest of Asuka Langley Soryu. Kira heard a rib buckle underneath the Stormhound's armor, the breath whoosing out of Asuka's lungs as she folded up around Kira's shoulder and then sprawled backwards onto the sand, the handcuffs flying from her hand, pistol tumbling from the holster on the other side. Whirling, Kira took a step and brought one fist around and connected with Hope's right wrist, fracturing the bones and knocking that pistol flying from her grip. His knee came up in almost the same motion and slammed into her midriff, doubling her up with an explosion of breath, in time to meet another fist against the side of her head, dazing her and knocking her down onto her side in the sand.

Kira sidestepped a lashing foot from Asuka and caught that leg, he was in the process of twisting the leg to dislocate the knee and disable the Stormhound when his extra senses warned him to dodge once more, and Kira threw himself to the ground as a volley of hard rubber bullets scythed through where he'd been standing, fired from a few dozen meters away by Mayu Asuka. Senses twinging again, Kira rolled and leapt to his feet as a large hypodermic dart buried itself in the sand where he'd been laying, courtesy of Lacus Clyne, who was quickly approaching from another direction. Almost casually, Kira sidestepped a snapshot from Hope, who had not been as dazed as he'd thought, and this time he put her out for good with a punishing kick to her jaw than sent her flopping and sliding backward almost two meters. Kira winced as he saw blood and tooth fragments fly, but he was feeling less than guilty or remorseful at the moment. She had shot at him after all.

Crossing his arms in front of himself, Kira blocked a stamping front kick from Asuka, who had jumped to her feet while Kira was taking out Hope. Kira's forearms screamed as the bone bruised under the shock of absorbing the blow from Asuka's foot, delivered with the power of a jackhammer piston, Kira actually slid a few inches backward in the sand from the force of the blow. Stepping forward to the attack, Asuka threw a combination of punches, only to have her hand snatched right out of the air and then grabbed at the collar by Kira's other hand, and heaved a good ten feet through the air to land with a jarring thump on the wet sand of the beach just below the tide line on his back. Asuka felt something in her back twist and give under the impact, fiery pain lancing up and down her entire spine, but she refused to be taken out so easily.

Kira ducked away from another few shots from Mayu, and another tranquilizer shot from Lacus, only to find himself square in the line of fire of Misato Katsuragi's cylinder-action grenade launcher. The weapon vomited fire and spat a six inch long, two inch thick metal rod at him, the rod almost instantly expanded into a cross shape with hard rubber pads on the front edges, a subdual round meant to knock someone out through sheer physical impact. Kira blocked with crossed arms again, his bruised flesh protesting the treatment as he was knocked backwards, off balance. Kira hissed a curse as he felt a tranquilizer dart sink into his left side, he angrily brushed the empty dart away, feeling the cold numbness spread through his side from the sedative drug. Normally his immune system would laugh at a simple tranquilizer, but it was quite obvious that the Stormhounds had come prepared, and even though he didn't go down, Kira almost immediately felt a bit dizzy and disoriented as the customized drug doggedly attacked his nervous system.

Lacus could only stare as Kira staggered and then straightened, despite having been hit with enough sedative to take out a rodeo steer in full motion. Hope was down and out, Asuka was half down and hurt, and suddenly three-on-one odds wasn't looking so hot for them. She fired her fourth shot, but it was as if Kira knew that it was coming, because he was well out of the way by the time the dart got there. Moving sideways, Lacus tried to keep Kira in a three-way crossfire between Cagalli Yula Athha, Murrue Ramius and herself, careful to never stand opposite an ally, so they wouldn't have to risk hitting each other. A dose of this tranquilizer on a regular person might put them into a coma. Kira scrambled away from another burst from Murrue, staggering again as he wasn't entirely successful and several rubber bullets hammered into his side and shoulder, which had to hurt like hell.

That still didn't seem all that close to putting him down for the count though, and the Stormhounds kept up the pressure, keeping their distance, knowing that if they let Kira get within hand-to-hand distance, they were as good as down. It was almost like a team of matador's fighting a bull...each time Kira started moving towards one person, the other two would attack and force him to defend, and so forth and so on. Misato's fourth shot was a mesh net, the wires made of macromolecules, all but unbreakable and also nonabrasive, and even though Kira managed to dodge half the net, the other half enfolded his right side and swiftly got tangled up in his arm and leg and head. Still, he didn't go down, not even when he caught a full ten round burst of rubber bullets from Murrue, right across the solar plexus. Lacus sighted and aimed, and sent another tranquilizer dart into Kira's buttocks, which made the Ultimate Coordinator stumble yet again, but still he would not fall down. Lacus was starting to think they'd have to shoot him for real to get him to go down.

Mayu hurried in with a high-voltage taser in hand, but Kira wasn't as unsteady as he appeared, and he blocked Mayu's thrusting arm with his free hand and then headbutted the young Stormhound right in the face. Mayu had her helmet on, but she was still staggered and dazed, though Kira didn't look too well off either. Kira took a step towards the dazed Mayu, or tried to, but the two tranquilizer doses and the net fouled him up and he fell to his knees in the sand. Misato took three big steps forward and unloaded another cross shaped subdual round right into Kira's breastbone, knocking him over flat on his ass, but he still kicked and struggled to stand upright once more.

Asuka lurched forward and slammed her foot down on Kira's chest with grave force, and she heard the crackle of bones suffering hairline fractures. She had little sympathy, her own broken rib felt like it was digging into her liver, and Hope was lying there like a wet noodle, her lower face a mess of blood, her right wrist twisted at a grossly obscene angle. Keeping Kira pinned, Asuka snatched the taser from Mayu and jammed it down, right into the base of Kira's neck. There was an actinic flash of blue-white sparks, and Kira's body jerked as it was electrocuted. Astoundingly, Kira's eyes were still fluttering open and his free arm lifted and began pushing at Asuka's foot on his chest, despite having taken enough punishment to kill most people. Asuka stabbed downward with the taser once more, but this time Kira's arm flashed up and caught the baton behind the sparking head and snatched it from Asuka's grip.

"Motherfucking faker..." Asuka swore, even as Kira flipped the baton around and jabbed it upward. Right into Asuka's groin. The electric jolt lifted Asuka six inches into the air in a single muscle spasm, before her joints locked tight and she collapsed backwards, stiff as a tree, her face pale and twisted, foam bubbling from her nostrils and mouth from the pain of taking over 500,000 volts right into her crotch.

"That was not nesscary, Kira!" Lacus yelled, even as she freed a 7' long leather whip, lined with 1" spikes, from a small holster on her right hip and lashed out with the weapon, blue-white sparks of electricity dancing between the spikes as the thin weapon streaked towards its target. "This is a training simulation, not a real fight!"

"Tell that to Asuka!" Kira shot back, before noticing that Cagalli was charging towards him from the direction opposite Lacus with a large dart gun in her hand. Kira couldn't help but grin slightly as he effortlessly backflipped over the whip, allowing it to slash Cagalli across the chest, delivering 500,000 volts of electricity almost directly into her heart.


	123. Temporal Explosion

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 123**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

Cagalli Yula Athha sighed and got up, heading for the bathroom to do her business. She stopped when she noticed a blue box sitting on the sink. She mentally counted. And gave a scream.

Athrun jolted awake and saw Cagalli staring at him, her golden eyes showing entirely too much white. Athrun sighed and moved so she could sit down on the bed. "What's wrong, Cagalli?"

"When was my last period, Athrun?" She asked, her voice shaking.

Athrun thought briefly. "About thirty-six days ago..." It was now Athrun's turn to scream. "You mean, you're...you're...you're...?"

Cagalli nodded, scared.

"Kira's going to kill me." Athrun muttered.

"No, I'm going to kill you!" Lacus Clyne shouted from the doorway. Athrun gave a shout and dodged a thrown butter knife. Lacus leapt at Athrun, spoon and fork in hand. Cagalli looked down at her belly. She put her hands over where a bulge would be in a few months.

"Please, please don't inherit _their_ genes!" Cagalli begged. "I don't need a little Kira crying all the time or trying to kill Athrun!"

"Hey!" Lacus shouted. "What's wrong with a little Kira?"

"You want me to answer that?" Athrun asked, even as he kneed Lacus in the crotch, and she heard bells ringing. She fell over, falling into the fetal position.

"That was below the belt, cheap shot!" Lacus yelled from where she lay on the floor.

"You were trying to kill me with a fork!" Athrun protested.

The ZGMF-X42S Destiny Gundam of ZAFT slashed at the CB-X60D Divinity Gundam of Celestial Being. A pink lance of energy suddenly came between the Divinity's beam saber and the Destiny's anti-ship sword. Shinn blinked and looked at the golden mobile suit.

"Back off." Cagalli said. The golden mobile suit, the ORB-01 Akatsuki Gundam, knocked the Destiny back and charged, wielding a beam naginata at Destiny's chest.

"You Natural Whore! Do me a favor, AND STAY DEAD!" Shinn shouted, as he threw a beam boomerang, severing, the Akatsuki's weapon arm. He threw another, both coming at Cagalli's suit from different angles.

Divinity suddenly fired its twin rail guns, destroying both beam boomerangs. Shinn looked up to the Divinity and readied his blade. With a bright pink flash, the Destiny's wings of light snapped open and the mobile suit lunged, slashing at the angelic form of the Divinity. When Shinn opened his eyes, the Divinity wasn't there. The Destiny's hands let go of the anti-ship sword, and Shinn looked in time to see the sword split into two, cut clean down the middle.

As the anti-ship sword fell away, the Destiny's armor went black, its eyes turning red. It leveled its beam cannon at the Divinity and fired, unleashing a red-and-black energy blast from its cannon. The Divinity dodged, and the beam blast struck the water, the blast instantly forming a ball of energy large enough to emcompass an entire Archangel-class ship, and finally the ball exploded.

Within the Divinity Gundam's cockpit, Kira sighed as all 36 of the DRAGOON units flew from his machine's back, the brightly glowing weapons spiraling elegantly through the sky, leaving armies of blazing afterimages in their wake, and as the DRAGOON units flew through the air, multiple panels opened on the outside of each one, with each of the remote weapons unleashing another 10 DRAGOON units. In less than five seconds, the sky was filled with a total of 396 DRAGOON units, each one glowing with a blood red light and leaving dozens of afterimages behind as they streaked through the sky. "Now then." Kira grinned. "Watch as I proceed to fire beam blasts at every point in space and time, across the entire universe."

But just before Kira was able to pull the trigger, a blindingly bright white light unexpectedly surrounded the entire planet as the fractured timelines finally lost what little stability they had. The globe of light quickly spread out from the Earth's surface before finally emcopassing everything out to the orbit of Mars.

The black, airless void of space near the massive Gamma-ray laser known as GENESIS was a writhing, pulsing sea of absolute chaos. Hundreds of Earth Alliance GAT-01 Strike Dagger and GAT-04 Windam mobile suits clashed violently with an equal number of ZAFT ZGMF-601R GuAIZs, ZGMF-1000 ZAKUs and ZGMF-2000 GOUFs. Battleships exchanged fire, green energy beams flashing back and forth, either to miss or strike, causing death and destruction wherever they hit, as the surface guns of Jachin Due added their own lethal light to the picture.

Heero Yuy, within the cockpit of the XXXG-00W0 Wing Gundam Zero, had been skirting the edge of the massive battlefield which he had suddenly been thrust into, analyzing the situation when he spotted a white mobile suit in the distance. Zooming the Wing Zero's cameras in on the suit, he noted the strange, fin-shaped apparatus attached to its back and its familiar design aesthetic. "Hm...that's a Gundam. But I don't recognize it."

He was, in fact, looking at the RX-93 Nu Gundam. Aboard Nu Gundam, an older Amuro Ray looked back at Wing Zero, intrigued by the design of its angel-like wings.

"Wow, look at that. That's definitely a Gundam, but I've never seen any mobile suit with a design like that. Maybe I should contact the pilot and try to figure out just what's going on here." He was about to reach for the communications panel when all hell suddenly broke loose. From Heero's point of view, he saw a mobile suit, a ZAFT GuAIZ, which was about to ambush the white Gundam from behind. Just like that one time with Duo, Heero aimed his twin buster rifle and opened fire, the massive energy beam flying right past Nu Gundam and annihilating the GuAIZ. Amuro took a slightly different view of the life saving shot, specifically an attempt on his own life. Amuro responded by firing back with his own beam rifle. Heero dodged out of the way, cursing as he did so.

"Dammit, now he thinks I'm the enemy." Heero growled as the fins on the back of Nu Gundam separated and folded in on themselves before then opening fire.

"Great, remote weapons. They seem to be something like the Mercurious' and Virgo's deflectors but these ones shoot back." In response, Heero leveled the twin buster rifle and fired another massive blast of energy. Nu Gundam's fin funnels formed a protective I-field in front of the Gundam, shielding it from the worst of the blast.

"Damn!" Amuro cursed. "That's one powerful rifle he's got there. Unreasonably powerful. This is gonna be a difficult fight."

The Wing Gundam Zero and the Nu Gundam continued firing at each other, each attempting to take the other down. And so Amuro Ray, a Newtype pilot with a Psycho-Frame cockpit and Heero Yuy, the Perfect Soldier with the Zero system cockpit, began to duel.

Kamille Bidan in the MSZ-006 Zeta Gundam, and Emma Sheen in the RX-178 Gundam Mark II, were in the thick of the fighting. They had been fighting with a squad of RMS-108 Marasais but these had then been shot down by a group of OZ-02MD Virgos, painted in black-and-red. They had been having a hard time with the Virgos until they had wandered right into a three-way melee between a group of ZAFT ZGMF-1017 GINNs and ZGMF-600 GuAIZ mobile suits, Zeon MS-06F Zakus, MS-09R Rick Doms, and MS-14A Gelgoogs, as well as Earth Alliance TS-MA2 Moebius mobile armors and GAT-01 Strike Dagger mobile suits.

"Kamille, I think we're in trouble!" Emma said, as the Zeta Gundam and the Gundam Mark II flew back-to-back, firing at any mobile suit that dared to come close.

"Really? I hadn't realized!" Kamille shot back, trying to fire at a fast moving OZ-12SMS Taurus, painted in the standard black colors of the OZ orignization.

"We need to get out of this, we need to find the Argama." Emma responded, resolving later to have a word with Kamille about snarkiness over the comm. If any of them were still alive by then.

A group of MS-09R Rick Doms fired their bazookas at some Strike Daggers. The Dagger pilots wisely decided to take cover behind some floating debris. The rounds struck, sending shrapnel flying everywhere. A huge chunk of debris went flying towards Emma and Kamille, both of whom were forced to dodge. Emma pulled up, firing her beam rifle at an oncoming MS-14J ReGelg. The ReGelg dodged to the right, straight into the guns of a DT-6800A Daughtress. Emma's shots traveled on and nearly struck the ORB-01 Akatsuki Gundam, piloted by Cagalli Yula Athha. Cagalli immediatly oriented on the shots and fired her own rifle at Emma. Growling at this new development, Emma attempted to arc around some debris, hoping the pilot would forget her and find easier targets. Cagalli was the tenacious type though, and she wasn't about to let someone who'd just shot at her get away.

Kira Yamato, in his CB-X60D Divinity Gundam, whom had been flying alongside Cagalli, called to her over the communications line. "Cagalli, wait! Don't get separated!"

"Don't worry about me, Kira. Watch your own back." Cagalli retorted.

Emma's threat alarm shrieked as green energy bolts flashed past her. Twisting around, she saw the Akatsuki headed straight toward her. "Tenacious aren't we?" She rhetorically asked the oncoming mobile suit, aiming her beam rifle and opening fire.

Kira would have followed Cagalli, but a single OZ-02MD Virgo II distracted his attention. Quickly realizing that his beam rifle was useless against its shield, he drew one of his beam sabers and lunged forward, ducking under the mobile doll's beam cannon and stabbing it in the torso. At the exact same time, almost directly across from him, Amuro Ray, in his RX-78-2 Gundam, had been firing at a RMS-106 Hizack. In a strange twist of converging events, a flailing G-838 Mahiroo crashed into the Hizack and knocked it out of the way at the same moment that Amuro pulled the trigger. His shots flew through the space where the Hizack had been and grazed the Divinity. Kira immediately turned and fired back with his beam CIWS, Amuro's Newtype reflexes being the only thing that saved him. Barely dodging Kira's volley of beam blasts, Amuro flew towards the Divinity, dodging up, down, and around to avoid being fatally hit, even though a few blasts scarred the Gundam's armor. Closing to beam saber range, Amuro activated one of the beam blade weapons and slashed at Kira who blocked with his own saber. As Amuro Ray and Kira Yamato crossed blades, the patch of space around GENESIS, which they had been dropped into, continued to tear itself apart as people who had been thrown into an unknown situation fought savagely for their survival.

In the cockpit of the ZGMF-X42E Eclipse Gundam, Shinn Asuka's eyes widened as his advanced sensors suddenly locked onto the ZGMF-X42S Destiny Gundam, but the crimson-eyed man instantly realized that the approaching machine wasn't the Destiny Gundam which Hope Yamato piloted, as it didn't possess any GN drives. After a few seconds of hesitation, the Eclipse freed its standard anti-ship sword, as the Destiny did likewise, and with a flash of pink light, both machines ignited their wings of light and streaked towards each other, meeting with a crash and locking blades.

Within the Divinity Gundam's cockpit, Kira sighed as all 36 of the DRAGOON units flew from his machine's back, the brightly glowing weapons spiraling elegantly through the blackness, leaving armies of blazing afterimages in their wake, and as the DRAGOON units flew through the void, multiple panels opened on the outside of each one, with each of the remote weapons unleashing another 10 DRAGOON units. In less than five seconds, the space around the Divinity was filled with a total of 396 DRAGOON units, each one of the remote weapons glowing with a blood red light and leaving dozens of afterimages behind as they streaked through the vacuum of space.

"This is a warning to all forces currently engaged in combat!." Kira spoke, having forcibly opened a communications channel to all of the mobile suits and ships on the battlefield. "You will cease all combat activites or be forced to helplessly watch as I proceed to fire beam blasts at every point in space and time, across the entire universe."

As Kira finished speaking, the Excalibur faded into existence just beyond the edge of the battlefield. Instantly, all of the mobile dolls turned and began moving towards the Divinity Gundam, having determined it to be the greatest threat, while the manned mobile suits remained reletively motionless, their pilots having been overcome by an unexpected wave of fear when the dagger-shaped warship suddenly appeared. Kira didn't even flinch as the closest group of mobile dolls opened fire with their beam cannons, only for the searing yellow energy blast to be deflected by the angelic machine's armor.

"Stupid mobile dolls." The amethyst-eyed man sighed, freeing both beam rifles from the Divinity's hips and quickly sniping the closest mobile dolls with incredible percision and efficency, targeting and destroying the beam cannons, leaving the machines completely unarmed.

Kira glanced over the radar. The remaining mobile suits and mobile dolls were scattering, even though they were just barely within range of the Divinity's weapons. At this point, they were so disorganized that Kira could pick them off one by one, with only one hand and his eyes closed, if he really had to. He could tell from the way that they were reacting that they were no longer looking for a fight.

"This is Kira Yamato in the CB-X60D Divinity Gundam." Kira spoke once again over an international channel, doing his best to keep arrogence out of his voice. "The Excalibur will continue on its present course. If you so wish, you may escort us to Earth and we may settle matters there. We will be more than willing to allow you access to our hangers, refueling facilities, and ammunition stockpiles for the remainder of the flight."

Kira continued to circle around the broken mobile suit formations in a waltz of death, ready to fight at a split second's notice. One mobile suit, which Kira instantly recognized as the ZGMF-X20A Strike Freedom Gundam, still bearing its standard colors of white, black and red, buzzed past him, rushing towards the Excalibur. Kira turned and locked onto the Strike Freedom with his combined beam rifle. One shot with the combined rifle was all he needed to take down an enemy, even one like the ZGMF-X20A Strike Freedom Gundam. Suddenly, the Strike Freedom joined Kira in his dance, a beam rifle in each hand, both weapons pointed back at him.

"Your terms are...acceptable." The dozens of Gundam pilots, whom had now assumed command of the mobile suits from their respective universes, finally growled over the radio after a long moment of extremely tense silence. "Continue on your present course."

"Thank you." Kira replied. "Anyone who wishes to do so may now land in the Excalibur's hanger." As soon as he had finished speaking, all of the ships and mobile suits moved towards the Excalibur's hanger bays, which were now slowly opening.


	124. Paradigm City

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 124**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

Kira jolted awake as the alarms began to go off. He quickly dressed in his pilot suit and rushed for the hangar.

Murrue looked to the CIC. "Activate Igelstellungs! Open the launch catapult as soon as the pilots are ready to launch."

Canard powered up his YMF-X000A/H Dreadnought Gundam as Kira lowered himself into the CB-X60D Divinity Gundam's cockpit.

'You're going, too?' Kira asked over the radio.

"I'm not some useless mobile armor pilot, you know." Canard muttered.

"An attack force of 50 AMA-953 BABIs. No other units detected." Mirillia informed.

Asuka, Shiho, and Misato looked at the radar screen. Shiho actually looked somewhat worried. Asuka looked around the bridge, and sighed.

"Okay, I'll head out in Eva Unit 02." Asuka said, heading for the lift.

"You don't think I can handle it with my Savior Gundam?" Shiho asked, looking over her shoulder at Asuka, her violet eyes narrowed.

"I don't doubt that you can handle it." Asuka answered. "But, the Crimson Wolf wants out." The redhead grinned over her shoulder as she referred to herself by the name which her enemies had given her, narrowing her sky blue eyes as she glanced at Misato. "And besides, you and Misato aren't really equipped to handle BABIs." She lied, and without waiting for a reply, walked into the lift. Misato chuckled and shook her head.

"I almost feel sorry for Durandal." Misato said. Shiho gave her a neutral stare. Misato's smile disappeared upon seeing Shiho's expression. "Nevermind."

"Kira Jesus Yamato. Divinity Gundam, launching!" Divinity bent its knees and blazed down the tracks, then released, its engines igniting.

Canard closed his visor. "Canard Pars. Dreadnought, heading out." Dreadnought shot forward, its beam machine gun in hand.

Kira dodged a pair of beam rifle shots and fired back, destroying the beam rifles wielded by the attackers. The mobile suits instead aimed their beam machine guns and fired, nearly hitting the Divinity. A large portion of the mobile suits began firing their quad vulcans on the Divinity, forcing Kira to dodge. He fired his rail guns, knocking off vulcans suit by suit, rounds sparking off his MCPS armor.

He turned just as a pair of BABIs flew in behind him and fired their multi-phase beam cannons. Kira's eyes went wide, even he didn't have enough to time to dodge energy weapons when they were fired at point-blank range. Suddenly, an orange mobile suit was between the Divinity and the BABI, delivering a disabling beam saber slash to the BABI's multi-phase cannon before then fading out of existence. Kira backpedaled in surprise.

"Maybe we should fix the timelines when we get the chance." Kira mused as he fired a rocket anchor from within the Divinity's right palm, the projectile wrapping itself around the BABI's leg, Kira smirked as he yanked on the tether attached to the anchor and pulled the machine towards him. The BABI barely managed to duck under Kira's beam saber slash, before moving to cut off the Divinity's arm. Kira growled as he kicked the BABI in the face, knocking the machine into the ocean, and then fired his rail guns after it, pounding its armor.

A beam rifle blast suddenly interrupted Kira's path. He turned to watch as the ZAFT-built Impulse Gundam locked on the Blast Silhouette pack and aimed its beam cannons at him. Kira effortlessly dodged the twin blasts and fired back with his plasma cannons. The Impulse dodged, drawing a pair of beam javelins as it did so.

"It's not Shinn or Mayu in the Impulse." Kira muttered to himself, even as he continued to effortlessly dodge the hail of beam blasts from the rapidly approaching Blast Impulse Gundam. "Falcon kick!" The amethyst-eyed man shouted, as his angelic machine suddenly blazed with a blood red light, leaving a cloud of afterimages to catch the javelin slash as he kicked the Impulse aside. The pilot of the ZAFT mobile suit shouted out in surprise as the Impulse hit the ocean.

The Impulse raised itself out of the water, only to be kicked to land by the Divinity. The angel-winged machine landed atop the Impulse, and aimed a twin buster rifle at the cockpit.

Meanwhile, about five miles inland, a huge city stood, only hidden from sensors by the fractured timelines. In the center of the city, the shattered dome of the Paradigm Corporation stood in ruin. The once magnificent building that was both Paradigm's headquarters and Alex Rosewater's palace was split open like an egg. Underneath the ruined structure, the damage was more superficial. The underground complex was where the white megadeus called Big Fau was being restored. Scaffolding and workmen surrounded the white giant. Even so, with over a third of the megadeus destroyed, it was going to be hard to get massive robot fully operational again.

As a transparent hemisphere enclosed the cockpit from the rest of the control room, the three circular monitors at Alex Rosewater's feet came to life, as the man in question settled into the chair. A strange buzzing sound was heard in the cockpit.

"Yes, you're right, Big Fau." Alex frowned. "It's time to get back at that poor excuse for a domineus who put them up to this! It's time to rid my world of Roger Smith!"

Outside in the hanger, the frightened workmen cried out as the scaffolding around the white megadeus fell away. Screams and metallic impacts could be heard as the injured leviathan staggered to its feet and lumbered forward. Alarm klaxons were heard as Big Fau stumbled towards the huge lift that would take it to the surface.

"Sir!" The technician in charge of the elevator controls exclaimed. "The elevator! It's activating all by itself!"

"What?" His supervisor gasped. "That's impossible!"

Inside the cockpit of the white megadues, Alex Rosewater grinned an ironic smile. "Who knew, Big Fau?" He mused as the giant robot rose to the surface of the city. "We don't need that android's memory. You have me instead. Together we are complete. This is what you wanted all along isn't it? And deep down, this is what I wanted. Now let's bring this ungrateful city to its knees!" The roof opened above the robot allowing it access to the outside world. "Big Fau!" Alex Rosewater shouted in glee. "It's showtime!"

Like the dead rising out of their graves on judgment day, the black megadeus tore out of the ground sending concrete and asphalt flying in all directions. The massive robot thundered forward away from the crater its appearance had created and stood in the middle of the highway heading towards the main dome.

"There you are, Roger Smith." Alex Rosewater spat, a sinister grin on his skull-like face. "Now we'll see if you've got what it takes to be a domineus."

Roger sat in the cockpit and put his feet into the pedals. He crossed his arms as two curved arms ending in joysticks closed to encircle his chair. A transparent bubble closed to seal him off from the rest of the circular room.

"Big O, action!" Roger exclaimed. Just then a bulb flashed on the communications panel.

"What is it, Norman?" Roger asked as he flicked a switch. "No offense, but I'm a little busy here."

The circular screen on the right activated to display the face of a concerned Norman Burg. "Master Roger! I just realized. Big O is loaded with less lethal ammunition! The missiles and armor piercing shells were left back here!"

"Now we do this the hard way." Roger grimaced as he activated the eye lasers.

In Big Fau's cockpit, Alex Rosewater sneered. "I don't think that you have what it takes to pilot the Big, _Negotiator_. I think that Big Fau can defeat you using only one hand." He hit the button on his joystick and the turbine on Big Fau's remaining forearm, the left one, sprung to life. Big Fau's hand and forearm launched to become a deadly projectile.

With the flick of a switch, the anchor on Big O's right hip shot out, propelled by miniature turbojets, trailing a massive chain behind it. When the anchor had secured itself to the ground, Roger reeled in the chain to pull the black megadeus to the side and out of the path of Big Fau's hand. "That was too close." Roger breathed.

"What's the matter, Negotiator." Alex mocked. "Lost your nerve? I think there are parts in your megadeus that would restore Big Fau quite nicely, don't you agree? Think of your Big as an organ donor."

Two laser projectors extended on flexible periscope-like extenders from Big Fau's back. Roger responded by using Big O's arm shields to protect his body. "Why the hell am I on the defensive?" Roger grunted. "This is ridiculous!"

The fight suddenly came to a halt, however, as a new voice was heard over the communications lines, one which sounded much younger than the two megaduce pilots. "Stop this pointless fighting, you morons!" The voice shouted, and an instant later, another machine seemed to appear out of thin air, standing in between Big O and Big Fau.

The new arrival was the same size as Big O and Big Fau, but that was the only thing they had in common. The newly arrived machine was colored white with a black chest and a few red accents, in the center of its chest was a glowing green orb, and on its forehead was a pair of golden horns. The machine also held a large, twin barreled rifle in each hand, it had a large, aerodynamic shield mounted on its right forearm with a smaller shield mounted on the left forearm, but, its most unique feature was the pair of brightly glowing angel-style wings on its back.

"I am Kira Jesus Yamato." The pilot of the angelic machine spoke after a moment of tense silence. "And my machine is known as the CB-X60D Divinity Gundam." He continued, even as Big Fau began to glow with a white light, and when the light faded a few seconds later, Big Fau had been completely restored.

"Foolish child!" Alex roared, as Big Fau charged forward, bringing its right arm back for a brutal punch.

"Tell me, why does a man who rules an entire city feel the need to destroy it?" Kira smirked as Big Fau's fist impacted on the Divinity's glowing GN field and bounced back, forcing the white machine to take a step backwards to prevent falling on its backside. "What's the deal with that, huh?" When Alex didn't answer, Kira unfolded his arms and smiled. "As for what sort of being I am; I am God himself, and as of this moment, I have a duty to be the thing between you and the destruction of this city and its innocent civilians!"

"You really believe that you can make a difference, don't you, boy?" Alex retorted. "You've cast me in the role of the villain. Well now, how do you know I'm not the hero?"

"You're not the hero, Alex Rosewater." Kira laughed. "All you are is a stupid, genocidal maniac, just like someone I used to know named Rau Le Creuset."

"Shut up!" Alex growled as a pair of massive cannons emerged from Big Fau's chest and fired at the angelic machine.

"Hey Alex, I can't help wondering." Kira called in a mocking voice, as he ignited his beam shield, the glowing white energy barrier vaporizing the cannon shells. "Why are you doing this? I mean, you have enough money and power to even make your worst enemies do what you want, so why do you need a megadeus? There must be some reason."

"I now have the power that only a megadeus can provide." Alex replied smugly. "I can surpass the world my father built, and take my place among the gods!"

"You will never be anything close to a god!" Kira snarled, as the Divinity's eyes flashed with a bright purple light, the machine flapping its angelic wings a few times and taking to the air.

"I am everything my father once was!" Alex growled. Kira smiled, he must have hit a nerve. "I shall surpass my father and finish what he started!" The chairman insisted. "No one shall forget the name of Alex Rosewater!"

"Yeah, until the next guy comes along," Kira said dryly as he dodged another volley from Big Fau's cannons. "Then he'll undo everything you did and try to make his own mark on society. I wouldn't be surprised if he tried to erase everybody's memories just to be sure."

"No one will replace Alex Rosewater!" The chairman roared. Big Fau fired lasers from its back, but the Divinity's wings snapped open and a white plane of energy appeared in the gaps as the machine moved itself to the left, the energy blasts slicing through mere afterimages.

"Why not, you've replaced your father, Gordon Rosewater, haven't you?" Kira quipped as he fired both plasma cannons, along with the twin hyper-impulse cannons to rake the ground in front of Big Fau, carving a large trench in the roadway. "Did your father ever tell you that he loved you? I mean, you've got no friends or loved ones. You don't want any. He never taught you how to open up to anyone did he? Must be a pretty lonely life."

"My father was a god!" Alex cried, even as a pair of lasers once again shot out of Big Fau's eyes, but the Divinity countered with its beam shields, before once more landing on the ground.

"You handle that megadeus pretty well." Kira smiled as Big Fau came closer. "Where did you get the memories to operate that thing? Did we go to school together?" A missile was fired from Big Fau, hitting the Divinity in the chest.

"Did you ever have your head shaved when you were a kid?" Kira asked with false sincerity as the smoke from the explosion faded, only to reveal that the Divinity Gundam was completely unharmed. "Stare into a fire and watch books burn? See a barcode flash before your eyes? I see that kind of stuff all the time and man, it's really pain in the ass." The amethyst-eyed man lied. "Doesn't that drive you crazy? Makes you wonder just who and what you are, doesn't it?"

"I am not one of your tomatoes!" Alex screamed as one of the periscope-style arms sprouting from Big Fau's back fired another energy beam at the Divinity, only to be deflected away by the angelic machine's advanced armor. "I am Alex Rosewater! Paradigm City's only heir! I am destined to be the ruler of all mankind!"

"Sorry, that's not going to happen." Kira responded as the Divinity spread its wings and the DRAGOON units took to the air with a flash of sapphire light. A few seconds later, everything faded to white as both the Divinity Gundam, and all 36 of its DRAGOON units opened fire.


	125. Nuclear Armageddon

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 125**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

"This is Intercept One to Excalibur air control." Kira reported from the cockpit of the CB-X60D Divinity Gundam, which was currently in its flight mode. "Divinity is now prepared for take off. Please relay launch instructions."

"This is control." Lexi's voice replied over the radio. "Please board elevator five."

"Orders acknowledged." He answered, and slowly eased the Divinity's power up, causing the machine to slowly roll forward. The craft soon joined a trio of P-51D Mustang fighters, a pair of B-29 Superfortress bombers, and two pair of X-02 Wyvern superfighters on the massive elevator, which began its slow ascension once they were safely locked into it.

"Intercept One, please taxi to pad B-5 and await further orders." Lexi relayed to Kira.

"Roger that." He complied, even as the fighter lurched forward slightly, soon expertly parked behind one of the large lines of fighters setting idly on the Excalibur's centerline runway.

Kira glanced off towards the right as he felt a slight rumble shake the fighter, four Jet Daggers soon visible speeding through the air towards the empty horizon, having launched from the bays in the side of the Excalibur.

Another quake soon overtook the Divinity, this one much more powerful than the last, as three more mobile suits shot out from the Excalibur's side launch bays. One of the three mobile suits was Meyrin Hawke's GuIAZ Experimental Firearms Type II, which contained features from both the Strike Freedom and Infinite Justice Gundams. One such feature was the Infinite Justice's flight pack, which could be mounted on the GuIAZ's back or stood on like a flying platform. Each configuration had its own advantages, considering the amount of weaponry built into the module alone.

The two machines escorting Meyrin's GuIAZ were GINNs, heavily modified versions of the Reconnaissance Type. They were a variant exclusively produced by Celestial Being, dubbed the Tactical Aerial Attack, or TAA, Type. They moved even faster than their predecessors in regard to speed, and were more heavily armed, equipped with a variant of the beam rifle used by the Freedom and Justice Gundams, with a 175mm grenade launcher like that from the GAT-X102 Duel Gundam's beam rifle attached underneath for good measure. The mobile suit also sported a set of multi-missile launchers attached to its legs, each able to unleash a single missile barrage capable of wiping out several unaware fighters at once. A pair of 120mm anti-ship Vulcan cannons could also be attached to the shoulders if there was a need for heavy weaponry, but because of the nature of the exercise, the GINNs were not equipped as such, primarily due to the fact that ZAFT neither used such weaponry, nor would they encumber their air combat mobile suits in such a fashion, as speed and maneuverability were often the deciding factors in an aerial dogfight.

"This is control to Intercept One." Lexi's voice reported a few minutes later. "The attack team has reported that they're in position. You are the first marked for take-off, so please do so with all haste."

"Roger that." Kira complied. "Divinity is now moving onto the runway."

Without another word, Kira maneuvered the Divinity off of the parking pad and onto the main launch strip, lining the nose up with the catapult at the end of the runway. An instant later, the machine lurched forward in acceleration.

"Kira Jesus Yamato, Divinity Gundam, engaging!" Kira reported shortly before the fighter hit the catapult, launching it high into the air.

The streetlights far below began to flicker as angry looters scanned the streets, looking for items to steal. Small fires seemed like they were lit down the blocks of the same street that Kira's Divinity Gundam was now flying high above on this cold, wintery night. "What the...?" Kira muttered as he zoomed his camera in on four teenagers carrying big screen tvs, camcorders, video games and iPods.

Police cars, ambulances and fire trucks screeched by the four teenagers as though they didn't exist. Obviously something was going on down there. With a scowl, Kira brought the Divinity's left plasma cannon to bear, aiming it at the four civilians far below and began to squeeze the trigger.

"Now they are amongst us and setting two or three nuclear suitcases off every week killing millions." The voice of a news reporter suddenly blared from the Divinity's cockpit speakers, causing Kira jump, and to remove his finger from the trigger. "The problem is where they are detonating them. They have planted suitcases around our 130 nuclear reactors and have caused several meltdowns across the country." The reported paused for a moment, but finally continued. "The explosions really only kill a few hundred each time. The real problem is the highly radioactive cloud that is hundreds of miles wide. The radioactive isotope, Cesium 137, infiltrates the clouds and eventually dissipates to the Earth's surface in the form of rain. It kills hundreds initially, but the real problem is that Cesium 137 has a half life of 30 years. Scientests say that any areas which are contaminated will remain completely uninhabitable for at least a few hundred years." After pausing for a moment in order to catch his breath, the reporter finally continued. "Each week, for the last two months, they have been blowing up two or three nuclear suitcases near a reactor causing a meltdown. The containment buildings are not designed to withstand nuclear blasts, and the radioactivity shoots into the clouds with the hot steam." The reporter paused again before continuing. "We have no way of knowing where the next attacks will be. The organization, which is known only as ZAFT, has threatened that they will continue to blow up their nuclear suitcases near our reactors until we surrender. The remaining population now lives on small pieces of uncontaminated land awaiting the end of our world."

After taking a moment to digest what he had just heard, Kira opened a communications line to all forces taking part in the combat exercise. "Attention all forces participating in the current military exercise." He said. "As of this moment, the intercept exercise is being called off. We have a huge problem in North America, specifically in the United States." He continued, pulling the Divinity into a sharp turn, thin contrails forming at the tips of the machine's angelic wings. "All forces are hereby ordered to return to the Excalibur."


	126. Gathering Swords

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 126**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

The sky was dark and clear, but starless. In front of Kira Yamato, however, only red filled his vision. A disgusting iron-like smell overwhelmed his nostrils, giving him a powerful urge to vomit. He stumbled across the field, his hands and legs out of control, his mind in a daze. He faintly heard voices screaming to him, begging him to spare them, but he silenced them with swift movements of his arms.

He was killing. Killing them all. He couldn't stop. Even when he cried for help he killed. He stabbed. He shot. He crushed. Friends and people he had never seen before were equal victims. Tears filled his vision when his friends, his family, all died at his hands. Even when they rushed him he slaughtered them all. No bullet could penetrate him, nothing could make him stop. He was an invincible, unstoppable murderer.

Nothing could stop him nor the process of eliminating everyone. He crushed the bones of those he first slain, threw away the decomposing corpses that remained of those slain. Those who knew him tried to stop him, to reason with him, but their words were slurred, were unintelligible. It was like they were aliens, or even like he was an alien. He was alone, it seemed. Lost.

He traversed the whole world. No one could stop him. Flashes raced by him, impacted him, but he scarcely felt it. He felt flesh tearing away, his appearance becoming more hollow, more hideous, but he felt no pain. There weren't any protests from his soul, if he still had one,

He just wanted to stop, but nothing would let him. No matter how much blood filled his hands and covered his body, he couldn't stop this nightmarish scene. Soon, there was no one left. He was alone, abandoned, feared. People fled from him, calling him a monster. Pictures flashed in front of him, pictures unveiling the slain to his eyes.

"Stop! Please stop!" He begged. "I don't want to keep doing this! I'm not this! I don't want to see it anymore!"

Burned cities, monstrousities crushing, slashing each other and everything else. He was in one of them now, rampaging across the landscape. He tore through each of them with a scimitar forged with stygian markings, and a brimstone covering. He was condemned, a killer from Hell itself, a force beyond human understanding. For he was no longer human.

"Stop!" He cried. "Just make it stop!"

Then an ethereal voice entered his mind, a voice that halted him in his footsteps. Something tugging at him, shaking him, the voice whispering and screaming all at once. "Wake up!"

His vision was blurry, but he saw something dark, with a pair of faint spheres, one violet the other gold, right in front of his face. There was a faint light behind the dark figure, a crack that gave a miniscule glimpse at the world behind whatever was enclosed all around him.

"Kira, it was just a nightmare. Wake up." The voice was firm, feminine. He blinked several times, and saw a distorted visage of his wife and lover; Yumi, staring at him. Her flesh was rotting, blood seeped from her several injuries.

Her voice suddenly took on a demonic air. "Kira."

He lashed out at this hideous monster or whatever was masquerading as Yumi and leapt off of the bed, backing away from the downed figure. He stared at his hands. Full of blood. He could see the blood pouring from his hands. He blinked several times, trying to wish it away. He could almost hear the blood beginning to splash into the ground.

"Kira, stop! Shake it off!" The voice said, sounding much more like Yumi than before. Kira blinked several times, trying to see whether this was true, whether he was hallucinating.

"Calm down. It's okay." Kira looked up from his bloody hands to see a normal Yumi approaching him, her hair unusually disheveled, her eyes gleaming with concern, and, much to Kira's momentary relief, she looked normal. Like he was back in reality, or whatever reality was, anyway.

He looked at his hands. They glistened with sweat, but there wasn't anything else. Certainly no blood. Clearly, he had been hallucinating. A leftover from his nightmare had plagued him upon being woken up. The images he had seen had been elements of the nightmare, and he had transferred it to the reality. This was real. Yumi was real, she was here, flesh and blood, alive, without possession, without being a reanimated corpse. He hadn't been crushing people. He wasn't an unstoppable berserker.

Or perhaps the reality was hideous and he was dreaming right now. But before he could think about that possibility, even consider it, Yumi had wrapped her arms around him. Her head rested upon her chest, and stray strands of her hair tickled his chin and lips. "Calm down. Calm down. It's just a nightmare, okay? It's okay."

He suddenly realized that Yumi sounded injured, too. "Did...did I hit you again, Yumi?" He asked, fearing the worst.

"Just a blow to the stomach. You weren't yourself, don't worry about it." Despite the reassurance, Kira sensed Yumi's physical pain through the tone in her voice, and he looked away, stared at a random point in the wall.

_'I hurt her again...I'm no better than a wife-beater, am I?'_ Kira thought to himself, being sure to prevent his lover from being able to see his depressive thoughts. _'She doesn't deserve this. She doesn't deserve me.'_

"I-I'm sorry, Yumi. I-I didn't m-mean to...God." He buried his face into her shoulder, letting her nightshirt absorb his release of tears. It quickly became soaked with his hot tears, and only more poured out with each pat on the back Yumi gave him.

It was a miracle that his lovers had remained this tolerant. Why Cagalli had sacrificed so much of her political influence, why Lacus had ignored her musical career in favor of trying to keep him sane was beyond Kira's comprehension. They constantly told him why, but he wasn't sure whether he believed it or not. They seemed sincere, but a small part of him remained suspicious. Perhaps they were punishing themselves for sending him into more and more battles long after he had been pushed beyond his limit.

_'Am I going to break her? What if I go crazy and kill her?'_ Kira asked himself, as he did every time he had one of these nightmares, still being sure to shield the thoughts from Yumi. He wondered if the nightmare would continue to stick with him, long enough that he would end up changing his reality into something like his dreams. And Yumi would really be a corpse.

"Take a deep breath, Kira. You can do it. It's all right." Kira obeyed, forcing oxygen through his nose and down his constricted throat. He coughed as his throat protested against the surge of dry air, and Yumi told him to breathe like that again. And repeated it once more. Eventually, his heartbeat slowed to a halt, and his frantic grip slowly loosened.

Probably ten minutes passed in this deliberate, cautious dance of sorts. There was no way for Kira to tell the time, but when he had inquired once Yumi had told him it usually took anywhere from five minutes to two hours to get him calmed down. To Kira, this felt like one of the shorter ones. The nightmare hadn't been as long, and hadn't been as explicitly detailed as some of the others. Or perhaps it was the worst one of the lot and Yumi had simply improved at comforting him.

At least the fact that he still cared what happened to Yumi, and that he was afraid of hurting her reminded him that he was still human. Despite everything since the Bloody Valentine War, he had managed not to regress into something less than human. That was only mild consolation, but it was something that he could hold onto. And reason for Yumi not to give up yet.

Finally, his eyes dried. Perhaps sensing this, Yumi's embrace loosened and Kira was able to stare into her eyes. "You all right now, Kira?"

Kira nodded slowly. "Yeah. I guess."

One of her famed, dazzling smiles crept across her face. "That's excellent. This one was shorter than usual. Maybe you will get better, Kira. Just stay strong, all right? You're gonna get through this."

"I hope so." Kira couldn't think of anything else to say.

Yumi's hands curled around his own, and she led him to the bed. They sat down on it, and the bed creaked softly underneath their combined weight. "Just rest right now. Remember that I'm here. We've both got a bit of work to do, tomorrow."

"Yeah." The amethyst-eyed man nodded. "You are okay, right? I don't want to-"

"I'm fine." She smiled. "Now lay back, and try to fall asleep. I'm with you if anything happens, okay?"

Kira rested back, pulling the blanket above his body, He felt Yumi's left arm curl around his midsection, and after an initial moment of awakward silence, he realized he had a question to ask. It was one he asked frequently, for he was never sure what was the real answer. It was the same one, but he could never bring himself to trust Yumi. He didn't know why. Perhaps all the betrayal and misdirection that happened to him in the war still affected his mindset. There was no real answer. His memories back when he was happy, back when he had a small group of friends and lived in peace seemed so distant now, almost like an alternate reality or alien society.

"The very idea of Slants cuts against the grain, Kira." Hope Yamato sighed as she walked into one of the Excalibur's many the crew lounges, accompinied by Kira, Lacus, Cagalli, Mayu, Murrue, Asuka, Misato and Shiho. "Coordinator genes are always dominant."

"Always?" Kira asked, allowing a smirk to cross his face.

"Yes." Lacus answered. "Even if a child has a Natural parent who coupled with a Coordinator, the offspring will be a Coordinator, no exceptions."

"That's how we get second and third-generation Coordinators." Cagalli continued. "I know that spits in the face of standard biology, but that's just how it works."

"It's impossible to be three-quarters Coordinator or Natural." Asuka and Misato said in perfect unison, breaking their silence. "It's all or nothing."

"Even if it is somehow possible, the Slants will be targeted for discrimination because they'll superior to Naturals, but inferior to Coordinators." Shiho added a moment later, finally breaking her own silence.

"You all forget that I'm an Ultimate Coordinator." Kira sighed. "Even though some of you may, in fact, be Naturals." He continued, glancing at Asuka, Cagalli, Misato and Murrue. "Our children are garenteed to be Coordinators, unless we take steps to decide otherwise."

"So, what if two Naturals decide to have a child?" Lacus asked, trying to catch Kira off-gaurd and confuse him.

"In that case, Lacus." Kira smirked, knowing exactly why the blue-eyed beauty was asking that question. "The child will be a Natural."

Hawking Base was efficently designed. Due to the limited amount of space in a PLANT, it had to be. No more space was used than necessary for the crews to function in and be reasonably comfortable. And Chairman Gilbert Durandal's tour was similiarly succinct, with enough detail and sights to satisfy an ordinary person, but quick enough that Athrun couldn't look at the activities for very long.

"A lot of mobile suits..." Erica Simmons finally said, either in awe or in disgust, Athrun couldn't tell which.

"Yes. And from what the press releases say, you are about to launch a new warship as well," Cagalli said. Athrun silently approved of her still-suspicious stance. She was not going to let herself be taken in by Durandal as much as Durandal wanted her to be.

"Your actions are worrying the Pacific Earth Alliance in particular." Erica said. "With the North American Federation and Eurasia taking most of the abuse in the last war, the Pacific Earth Alliance is the predominant political and military force at the moment. And they've always been more aggressive and reactionery than either the North American Federation or Eurasia. The Pacific Earth Alliance wants an arms race."

Durandal shook it off with the wave of his left hand. "I have absolutely no interest in reigniting the war." He quickly answered. "That is the last thing ZAFT needs right now. Too many of her children perished in the last war. They're still being flown back in caskets. I can't put my people through another wringer."

_'Good answer.'_ Athrun thought.

"Try saying that to the Pacific Earth Allaince." Erica said.

"Right now, my only interest is to show strength so that any aggression can be prevented. There are terrorists, from both Earth and the PLANTs, whose only interest is to essentially neutralize the moderates in any manner possible. They are my primary concern. Because of their profession of terrorism, they are not bound by politics and niceties like Eastern Asia or any other organized government. They don't worry about anyone other than themselves, all they are concerned about is murder. They can strike anyone at any time, and with more lethal force than the Earth Alliance, Orb, or ZAFT."

Durandal seemed to have chosen his words carefully to Athrun. Perhaps _too_ carefully. Like he had rehearsed this whole conversation beforehand. Considering how quickly he had discerned Athrun's true identity, he wondered how intelligent Durandal was, and when he learned these political skills.

"The new mobile suits will play an important part of the campaign against the terrorists, and hopefully defuse any thoughts of aggression from the Pacific Earth Alliance, or any other warlike federations."

He looked at Erica and Cagalli at the same time and smiled calmly. "My people elected me so that I can strengthen the peace. To go to war, especially without provocation, is betraying them. I have been given a responsbility, to provide for the people and keep them safe. That is all I'm doing. Please refer that to Eastern Asia if you are so worried they will launch a preemptive strike without the support of the rest of the Earth."

Erica nodded. "I will. Whether they will listen or not is another matter altogether. Also, the North American Federation and Eurasia both desire revenge for last war. If there is an attack, the Pacific Earth Alliance _will_ have support."

Upon walking into the experimental mobile suit hanger, Hanger Six, on the Hawking Base, Kira Yamato nearly burst out laughing. Standing in the hanger were ten mobile suits, seven of which he had seen countless times before and could possibly beat without having to use the Divinity Gundam. Quickly regaining control of his compusure, Kira looked over the ten machines.

"ZGMF-X23S Savior, ZGMF-X24S Chaos, ZGMF-X31S Abyss, ZGMF-X42S Destiny, ZGMF-X56S Impulse, ZGMF-X88S Gaia, ZGMF-X666S Legend." The amethyst-eyed man muttered to himself, glancing over the seven familiar machines, before then continuing to the ones which he didn't recoginize.

The first of the three mobile suits, which Kira was not familiar with, was quickly identified as the ZGMF-XXX Rapist Gundam. The inappropiatly named mobile suit had an appearance that was highly reminiscent of the ZGMF-X10A Freedom Gundam. The ZGMF-XXX Rapist Gundam posessed a pair of chest-mounted multi-phase energy cannons, a single plasma cannon in the crotch, another pair of plasma cannons in the wings, and a pair of hyper-impulse cannons, which were stored on its back.

"Why the hell would ZAFT give one of their new Gundams a name like that?" Kira wondered aloud as he moved towards the second unfamiliar machine, the ZGMF-X150M Mewtwo Gundam. This machine, as its name suggested, had the appearance of a legendary creature known as; Mewtwo. While the Mewtwo Gundam didn't appear to posess any weapons other than a pair of shoulder-mounted vulcan guns, a multi-phase beam cannon in the chest and a beam cannon in each palm, Kira figured that most of its armarments were hidden.

Kira shook his head as he proceeded to the third new machine, the ZGMF-X01 Berserk Gundam. The ZGMF-X01 Berserk Gundam was essentially a copy of the Destiny which had been colored purple, green and black. But unlike the Destiny Gundam, the Berserk Gundam had a pair of DRAGOON units mounted on its backpack, in between the wings. After a long moment, the amethyst-eyed man let annoyed sigh escape his lips as he finally turned and walked out of the hanger.


	127. Smoke on the Horizon

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 127**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

"Why are you here?" Yumi Yamato asked, standing across from Athrun Zala, as they both stood on the front lawn of the Yamato mansion in Orb.

"Because I wanted to visit Kira." Athrun answered.

"Do you think now is the best time for Kira to be reminded of what he went through, and where he is right now in comparison to you and everyone else?"

Athrun's eyes widened. Even the last time he had spoken to Yumi in person she had never spoken so bitterly.

"He thinks this is a pity visit, Athrun. You're here because you pity him. Don't pity him." Yumi's lips quivered and her eyes became watery. "Don't you dare pity him. That makes him feel less than human."

"He's not less than human." Athrun said.

"He feels that way." Yumi replied. "He's convinced he's a monster and no matter how hard I try I can't shake it from his head. He's got voices talking to him. Zombies. Demons. And because of Junius Seven falling from the sky all he can think about is another war starting. And you're a reminder of that."

"How am I a reminder?" Athrun asked, barely keeping his voice down.

"You got to save the world again. Kira's stuck here where he can't make a difference. You think he wants or likes that?" Yumi made a scoffing noise. "You're shoving your success and your heroism in his face by being here."

Athrun simply stared at Yumi, completely stunned. "You really think I came here to mock him? Yumi, come on. I think he just needs to see a friend."

"He hurts me every day." Yumi said, tears beginning to stream from her eyes. "Many mornings when he wakes up he doesn't see me as human. In his nightmares he is adrift in some reality where all the people he killed or died because of him torture and haunt him. There is blood all over his hands, his entire body."

Athrun looked away, wincing. "I'm aware of that."

"Look at what he did to me." Yumi said, lifting up her shirt a bit. The bruises on her abdomen were plain to see, and seeing Yumi injured nearly jolted Athrun off of his seat.

"I, uh...I didn't know Kira could do that." Athrun said.

"He's capable of anything when he is possessed by his nightmares." Yumi said. Her hands gripped her knees. "And every time he hurts me, it tears him apart a little more. I want to help him so much but sometimes it feels like there's nothing I can do. He would be fine if his nightmares could be disspelled."

"What about a psych-" Athrun began.

"That won't work, Athrun." Yumi cut him off. "We tried that already. He went into SEED Mode and nearly killed the psychiatrist."

Athrun knew what SEED Mode was. He had seen the SEED shatter himself. But it hadn't happened to him nearly as much as it had for Kira. Kira had seen his SEED shatter dozens of times in a span of months, while Athrun's SEED had shattered less frequently over a briefer span.

SEED Mode was an ultimate berserker mode, where the Coordinator who saw the SEED shatter was capable of feats far greater than humans could do. Granted, Naturals seemed capable of it too, Cagalli had seen a SEED shatter too in the final battle, but it seemed to be far less frequent and barely even possible for them.

Yumi looked down. "Sometimes I wonder if it's SEED Mode itself that's doing this to him. I don't know. I'm out of explanations. Kira didn't do the horrible things he sees himself doing. He killed people, but he never killed civilians. He never annihilated cities and burned them to the ground. Why does he see himself doing these things?"

Yumi began to shake softly, and Athrun rose from his seat. Athrun realized that Yumi had no one to talk to about this, not until he had come. He wondered how long Yumi had been keeping this inside her. How long Yumi had been wanting to talk to someone but couldn't.

"Why?" Yumi asked. "Why did this have to happen to him? He is such an amazing person. Why?"

"I don't know." Athrun said as he embraced Yumi softly. "I just don't know."

Yumi began to cry into his shoulder then, and Athrun held her tightly.

Cagalli Yula Athha opened the conference room door, and Kira followed, only to make a right and stand in a corner. Cagalli, meanwhile, walked to her seat at the end closest to the door. Everyone else was already seated, including Unato Sieran at the far end and Yuna to the seat closest to Cagalli on the right.

Too close for Kira's liking.

The faces of the middle-aged men and women looked grim. Yuna's face was blank, but not in a stupid or dense way, just...blank, like he was hiding all emotions. Unato, the eldest person in the room, had his hands folded in front of him.

Unato spoke first. "You all should know why we're all here today. The situation with the Gundams is spiraling out of control, and both ZAFT and the Earth Alliance are throwing accusations at each other. We're caught in the middle, and repairing all of their ships that could wind up turning this island into a war zone. We need to decide what to do before the situation continues to deteriorate."

Cagalli spoke first, much to Kira's surprise. "Wouldn't the obvious solution be to throw all of the ships out of Orb waters?"

"That's the neutral standpoint, Cagalli, and that may not be the best idea." Yuna said.

Cagalli folded her arms. "Explain."

"I think the time has come for Orb to choose a side, Cagalli. Right now Orb public opinion has swayed towards siding with the Earth Alliance." Yuna said.

"Thirty-five percent, Yuna! Thirty-two percent advocate neutrality, and twenty-four percent want to side with ZAFT! There's no majority viewpoint." Cagalli said.

_'It looks like Cagalli's going to try her father's line.'_ Kira thought. _'And here I thought she'd give in and support joining the Earth Alliance.'_ He smiled inwardly. Cagalli would never give up her father's ideals so easily.

Yuna frowned. "So you say, Cagalli."

The other ministers just watched the argument in silence, as Cagalli and Yuna continued to argue it out. It was clear who was in control of the discussion. Now it would be up to Cagalli and Yuna to encourage everyone else to come to one of their sides.

But then Yuna slammed his fist on the table. "But there's intangibles you don't know yet, and why public opinion will further shift towards favoring the Earth Alliance! Look at the leaked broadcast of this clip on your screens!"

Cagalli's eyes widened, and Kira was able to get a peek at Cagalli's monitor from his corner. It definitely looked like ZAFT mobile suits, though he recognized them. They were from that radical remnant he had fought. The GINNs in particular looked haphazard and made out of spare parts.

But how would the public know the difference between that and normal ZAFT suits?

Cagalli's fists were so clenched her knuckles were turning white. Finally, she spat. "Who released this?"

"It doesn't matter anymore, Princess." Yuna said emphatically. "It appears to have been recovered from the Junius Seven wreckage in Europe."

"It was a small group of terrorists that did this, Yuna! Everyone knows that! ZAFT, the Earth Alliance, us, we all fought these people to prevent catastrophe! The amount of casualties are in the hundreds instead of in the millions because of us! There's no way public opinion will shift in favor of the Earth Alliance because of this!"

Cagalli was being quite persausive with her voice, using all of her skills at making speeches to try to regain any lost ground. However, compared to Yuna, she was a political neophyte. She was raw, inexperienced. She ran the risk of sounding irrational.

It was Yuna's turn to be dramatic. "Your father's ideals don't matter anymore, Cagalli!"

"What!" Cagalli snarled.

Unato finally spoke. "Cease, both of you! A shouting match is not going to get us anywhere!"

Cagalli and Yuna both looked at Unato.

"We need to seriously consider our options. The clip was broadcast this morning worldwide and remains on the networks. We won't know public opinion for some time to come. What matters is how the Earth Alliance and ZAFT will react to this. They, not public opinion, will dictate our choice."

"I apologize, Father." Yuna said and he sat back down.

"I apologize as well." Cagalli said, but even from Kira's perspective he could tell that Cagalli was giving Yuna the evil eye.

Unato took control of the conversation. "We have two ZAFT ships in port as well as two Earth Alliance ships. If the situation spirals out of control they will begin shooting each other, and both sides have Gundam machines. The devestation will be catastrophic."

"The obvious solution would be to throw them out of our harbors." One of the ministers said.

"Yes, but it's not quite that simple." Unato said. "Even if they leave the island they will still be in Orb waters long enough that if a war is declared they could begin dragging us into a conflict."

"How long will it take for us to throw them out?" asked a different minister.

"They have to be given twenty-four hours' notice, that's the standard law for removal from a neutral port. That's an entire day before they'll pull out."

Everyone froze in silence. That meant that if the situation continued to fall apart war could break out before either side's ships were out of Orb waters.

"So the best way to protect ourselves is to pick a side." Yuna said. "ZAFT or the Earth Alliance."

Many ministers murmured in agreement.

Then Cagalli spoke, and her words caused Kira's mouth to fall open. "Then the logical step would be to approach the Earth Alliance, wouldn't it?"

Everyone froze, especially Kira. Yuna looked shocked. Even Unato looked a little fazed. Nobody had expected Cagalli to say something like that.

_'Cagalli, what are you thinking?'_ Kira thought.

"Allying with ZAFT makes little sense. We'd be alone on this planet, inviting the Earth Alliance to turn our country into a battleground. If we're to ally with someone we have no choice but choose the Earth Alliance. That makes it doubly important we approach the Earth Alliance instead of them approaching us. We need to dictate the terms of an alliance."

Suddenly, Kira realized what Cagalli was doing. Unato seemed to know as well. "In other words; we're offering the Earth Alliance assistance instead of the other way around."

"That's right. We're the ones making the move, we're the ones telling the Earth Alliance how everything's going to play out. This includes letting ZAFT ships out of Orb waters. That will prevent any combat from happening in our waters or on our land." Cagalli said.

Yuna was fuming, Kira could tell. But Yuna was the one who advocated an alliance in the first place. He couldn't side against Cagalli here, not without looking hypocritical.

"And we'll dictate how our ships and soldiers will be deployed. I don't think all of our conditions will be accepted but we'll make a few we can concede without really changing everything."

Cagalli folded her arms. "In short, I will not let Orb become another fleet to be thrown into war to be carved up. We'll become the Earth Alliance's factory. We designed the Gundams in the first place. We can build more of them. Let the Earth Alliance waste money and lives fighting ZAFT again. If we're a factory, the Earth Alliance will have to protect us. We get nothing but benefits from this. We make no offensive manuevers and generally stay out of the war, and if the Earth Alliance wants our factories to produce, they'll have to protect them."

It was her father's strategy from the first war, only remade with more security guarantees...and no diplomatic relations with ZAFT. Her father's strategy had bought Orb eleven months of peace during the war. If war broke out again, if Cagalli's strategy gained Orb even half that amount, she would look like a genius.

She had made her move to protect her country, and to minimize the power which the Sierans wielded. But it seemed to come at the cost of something, Cagalli's own ideals. It was almost sad for Kira to observe this, watching Cagalli sacrifice what she believed in order to prevent political marginalization and keep Orb safe.

"Well, is it a bad plan?" Cagalli finally asked.

"No." Unato said. "It's a good plan. I'll have the alliance offer drafted immediately. That is, if we have a sixty percent majority."

The votes swung Cagalli's way by about eighty percent, including Yuna's vote.

"All right, let's hope this works, Princess." Unato said. "It's a gamble but it effectively keeps us out of the war. Your father would be proud of you."

Cagalli nodded, but there was a solemn grace to her movements that suggested she didn't believe that at all.

But thenm before anything else could be said, an aide busted into the room. "I'm sorry for interrupting, but turn your monitors to channel 267! Hurry!"

"Why?" Unato asked.

"It's Lacus Clyne!" The aide answered. "She's about to make a speech to ZAFT!"

_'Lacus?'_ Cagalli and Kira thought in unison.

"Lacus Clyne?" Cagalli sputtered outloud.

Yuna looked completely flabbergasted. "What's she doing? She fell off the face of the planet!"

_'This makes no sense.'_ Kira thought to himself. _'When I left the mansion this morning, Lacus was still there! There's no way she could have gotten to the PLANTs from there in time, not even with her Celestial Being shuttle, and there's no broadcasting equipment in the mansion. Then that means...the Lacus making the speech is a fake.'_

Cagalli and Kira looked at each other. She had come to the same conclusion from the look on her face.

Lacus Clyne continued her speech, continuing to preach the virtues of peace.

"I know that the events which have taken place over the last few days have been emotional for every human being, whether they be in ZAFT, Orb, or the Earth Alliance." Lacus said. "I know a lot of people in every country are quite angry. But we must only think back to three years ago, to what happened the last time we chose to let our anger take control."

Lacus closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and continued. "Uncontrolled anger will only lead to another war. Please get involved publicly with your governments to stop this rush to arms and keep the peace! Every country lost a generation of children and parents, sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Do we want to lose another generation, especially over three Gundams or the terrorist attack that destroyed Junius Seven?" She had modified the speech there. It had originally been more ZAFT-biased, but Lacus Clyne would never take sides when it came to war. She'd plead for every citizen in every country to calm down.

"I don't think so! The last war nearly led to a total apocalypse that would have condemned the Earth to a swift death and ZAFT to a slow one! If we let ourselves rush into another war, how long would it be before the horrors of nuclear weapons and Genesis are once again unleashed? Everyone must calm down and think about the consequences of another war! Encourage your politicians to find a peaceful solution to this crisis! We barely survived the last war. Could we survive another one that could even be more destructive?" She was almost done. "This is Lacus Clyne. Please do not succumb to hatred. Find peace, and end this war before it begins. Thank you."

The camera switched off, and Meer Campbell broke character. "I thought that would never be done." She said, still in Lacus's voice.

The cameraman grinned in embarrassment. "Lacus Clyne has a flair for the dramatic." He said.

Suddenly, the cameraman's face became more serious. "If you are caught publicly you have to remain in character, all right? Say things Lacus Clyne would say. Very few know you aren't the real Lacus."

"You don't think I know that? That's part of the reason I demanded so much money. I have to live someone else's life." Meer sighed. "I guess I should be going."

Kira thought that the meeting had been loud when Cagalli and Yuna had been going at it, but it turned out that he had no concept of what loud was until after the end of the fake Lacus's speech. Everyone was chattering, arguing, yelling. There was no concept of order anymore. It was like Lacus had proclaimed that God had come to smite them all. Cagalli had walked over to Kira while everyone was fighting.

_'Do you think we should perform some armed interventions?'_ The blonde telepathically asked.

_'Against who?'_ Kira answered.

_'Against ZAFT, of course.'_ Cagalli replied, her mental voice becoming somewhat angry. _'Those bastards have what could be a clone of my wife!'_

"How the heck did ZAFT get such a perfect impersonator? She looks _exactly_ like the real Lacus!" Cagalli hissed, no longer utilizing her telepathic abilities.

"I don't know, but I wish I did." Kira said.

Cagalli sighed. "Theories aren't going to get us anywhere. We need facts, Kira."

"Well, I don't have any facts as to how they found a perfect impersonator." Kira replied. "Unless they somehow cloned Lacus without our knowledge."

Cagalli looked at everyone, who remained absorbed in their own arguments, and finally she made eye contact with Kira again. "Celestial Being is coming out of retirement, those who can make it anyway." She said, causing Kira to simply nod in agreement. "Andy, Murrue, Lacus, everyone. Try to get Dearka too, before Orb decides to break diplomatic relations with ZAFT."

"Including Athrun and Meyrin?" Kira asked.

"Including Athrun and Meyrin." Cagalli said. "We have to find out a way to stop this war and fast. I don't think what the fake Lacus said is going to be enough. ZAFT seems hellbent on war."

"I don't understand it myself." Kira said. "Durandal doesn't seem to be the type of man who'd start a war."

"Well, he is." Cagalli snarled, her slowly rising anger now seeping into her voice. "While that fake Lacus was doing her speech, something showed up on the monitor that no one else seems to have noticed. ZAFT just broke diplomatic relations with the Earth Alliance."

Kira's eyes widened. "He has very poor timing."

"No, this is just a game. Durandal snuck this in hoping that we'd be obsessed with the fake Lacus's speech and not notice it. He's probably trying to provoke the Earth Alliance to strike preemptively. Make them think war's inevitable so they'd attack to have the advantage."

"That's frightening just to think about." Kira said.

"That's why we need the group together. I'm going to try to keep diplomatic channels open with ZAFT as long as possible. I'll gather the people in Morgenroete and the Orb military. You go after the people who scattered. Miriallia. Kira. Lacus. Dearka. There's a few others to add to that."

"Dearka's in the ZAFT though. How would I get him?" Kira asked.

"At least get in contact with him and we can wire him to the meeting." Cagalli said. "Maybe Dearka will be able to get us some sympathizers from within ZAFT so that we can find out what's going on."

"Good plan." Kira smiled slightly. "You want me to start with Dearka or start with the others?"

"Get an encrypted message to him, don't try to meet him in person. We have the equipment to do it at the mansion, so get to him from our place." Cagalli said.

"Meeting date?" Kira asked.

"Three days." Cagalli answered. "That should be enough time for those who scattered to get back here."

"The war could-" Kira began.

"We can't get everyone together any faster than that, Kira." Cagalli interrupted. "Now go. Once this damned meeting is over I'll do my thing." Kira nodded. He walked towards the door, and shut it behind him.

Celestial Being was coming back. But could the private armed organization stop yet another war?

That was a question that even Kira couldn't answer.

"Cagalli's calling for a meeting of Celestial Being, to be held three days from now." Kira said as he "I don't know what location she has in mind, but I bet it is where the Excalibur is hidden."

Lacus nodded. "Now that I can do something about. Hopefully Malchio and the new teacher will be here by then so Hope and I can go."

She turned to Hope. "You feel up to it?"

Hope, who had been silent the whole time, nodded slightly. "I guess." She said.

"Hope, either you can or you can't."

"I'll go, then." Hope said quickly.

Lacus seemed to accept that answer and she turned to Kira. "If Hope and I can't make it in person, we'll still attend by video conference."

"Speaking of that, I need to borrow your system for a bit to get in contact with Dearka."

Lacus nodded. "That's fine. How many people are you trying to track down?"

"Everyone who went their separate ways." Kira said. "Cagalli's handling those who are in Morgenroete or remained close by. I'm tracking down everyone else. If you have any info as to where they went..."

"I think Miriallia became a reporter." Lacus said. "She's probably where a big story is. That probably means she's at one of the military bases right now. I don't know where Sai went and neither does Hope."

"And don't ask me where Setsuna went." Hope added. "He fell off of the planet. No one's had any luck tracking him down over the last three years. We don't think he's dead, but..."

Kira nodded. "Your info on Miriallia is a big help, trust me."

Lacus sighed. "How bad is everything, Kira? Who's being the aggressor?"

"ZAFT is the aggressor." Kira said. "They just broke diplomatic relations with the Earth Alliance. Cagalli and I both think that ZAFT is trying to provoke the Earth Alliance into restarting the war."

"And how is Orb going to respond to this?" Lacus asked.

"Cagalli decided to side with the Earth Alliance under conditions dictated by Orb. Basically she's shooting for Orb to become the Earth Alliance's supply base and keeping her soldiers out of the fighting."

Hope's eyes widened. "She decided to go against Lord Uzumi's ideals?"

"She faced political marginalization if she chose to stick to them." Kira said. "I don't like it either but I understand why she did."

Lacus frowned. "I hope she didn't make a big mistake. Letting go of your ideals, even slightly, starts a slippery slope, Kira. Cagalli just let herself be corrupted."

"I'm not sure I'd put it that way." Kira said. He suddenly felt some pressure in his chest. He didn't want ot think of Cagalli as corrupted, he really didn't.

"It's one little thing." Lacus said darkly. "And once you let your ideals slide, even just a little, it gets easier to do so more and more until you have no ideals other than staying in power."

"You need to tell Cagalli this instead of me." Kira said.

"I will." Lacus said with finalty. "Now get in contact with Dearka. I'll try to track down Miriallia and the others while you do that so you have some direction. Hope, you stay here and help Kira in any way you can."


	128. Torchbearers

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 128**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

Lacus Clyne made it into the kitchen, and saw a cloth laying down in the middle of the floor. Even without examining it she knew what it was. Chloroform. The soldiers that had broken into the mansion knew that they were going after a Coordinator.

She fiddled with her keys as she walked towards the only locked compartment in the entire kitchen. Her eyes looked across the room cautiously, as she wondered if any of the soldiers were still around. It didn't seem they were. They had what they had come for. _'I have to hurry. I can't let them take Kira. If they want Kira, it's because they know he's the Ultimate Coordinator. Who knows what they'll make him do. Who knows what they'll do to him.'_

She unlocked the compartment. _'I can't let them hurt him!'_

The compartment was fairly bare, but what was there was striking. A pistol with multiple clips of ammunition, a zip-line, and a controller. She heard rumbles in the distance. Mobile suits. She was already almost too late.

She reached for the controller and zip-line, but hesitated as she saw the pistol. _'If I want to save Kira, I'm going to have to kill. There's no way around it.'_ She shook her head. _'I'm not a soldier. What am I thinking? I'm just going to get killed and that won't help Kira at all.'_ But then a new voice entered her brain, speaking as if it was Lacus Clyne, too. _'I love him. And I know he needs me. And anyone can be a killer.'_

Suddenly, Lacus saw the seed in her mind's eye. 'Is this...is this what Kira sees?' It suddenly began to crack, slowly, subtly. There was a long silence, other than the soft cracks of the seed slowly crumbling away in her mind's eye. _'I must save Kira.'_

Lacus suddenly felt a massive headache overcome her, and she fell to her hands and knees, clutching her head as the pain got worse and worse. _'I'm a berserker. I have to save Kira. I have no choice.'_

Lacus tried to force herself back to her head, but everything was blurry, disorienting. She couldn't focus on anything other than that steadily shattering seed, the seed the same color as her baby blue eyes, cracking and crumbling to unleash something so utterly frightful inside her that she could not control.

His face kept flashing in front of her. The young man she loved so much and had striven to heal and help for so long. He was being ripped away and she was never going to see him again. If she didn't change, Kira would be lost forever. And she'd be left all alone.

_'Kira must be saved. He can't be taken away. I have to kill.'_ Was that her own voice, or the voice of some berserker? She couldn't know. There was no way of knowing. Everything was blending, warping. Everything was hurting. The gun was becoming more and more alluring as was the power to kill and the power to destroy and the power to hold someone's life in the palm of her hand.

The seed finally shattered, and Lacus felt the stabbing pain rush from her head throughout the rest of her body. Tears streamed down her face, and her body was soaked in sweat. What she was becoming was so paradoxical against her nature that morphing her mindset was complete, total agony. Finally, the pain became so much that she had no choice but to scream. And the Lacus Clyne she had always been was gone. Everyone heard the scream.

The private, nicknamed 'Giraffe' because of his unusual height, turned around and aimed his gun at the schoolhouse that the squad had just exited. His buddy next to him shook his head. "What the hell was that?"

A third trooper chimed in. "That was the worst sound I've ever heard in my life."

The sergeant took charge. "Wolf, you and Giraffe see what the hell's going on in there. One of us better not be screwing around."

Wolf nodded. "Understood. C'mon, Giraffe."

How Giraffe hated his callsign. Right now, though, it was the least of his concerns. He thought the squad had been accounted for, but it wouldn't be the first time a commando squad had broken discipline in order to get some easy action.

They walked up to the door. Wolf whispered "Just go in, make sure nothing's going on, and get out. We can't fall behind. I got your six."

That was what doomed Giraffe in the end. He would become the first person to be murdered by the young woman he was about to see. He had just entered when he nearly bumped into her. He got a good look at her eyes. They were lifeless, focused, alien, and yet tears were relentlessly streaming from them, as if some inner self was trying to break out of her emotionless facade.

_'Wait a minute.'_ Giraffe thought. _'Is that Lacus-?' _The gun in her hand was raised in front of her forehead. _'Oh no.'_

A single gunshot put an end to his musings forever. There was no control. There was no end. There was just her and the enemy. The enemy that had taken Kira away. She could feel her usual self wailing and screaming and crying and she ignored all of it. She could only focus on the mission. Just the mission.

_'I must save Kira.'_ Lacus thought as another soldier entered the hallway. Her reflexes and senses heightened in her Seed state, she shot him in the head, the exact same way she had killed the previous commando.

The wailing became even more cacophonic, but also easier to ignore. She methodically stepped forward, and picked up the soldier's silenced submachine-gun. Logic dictated that she was going to need this a lot more than just a pistol. She was going to need the night-vision goggles too.

_'I must save Kira.'_ She repeated in her mind, even as she checked the ammunition count. In her usual state, it would have wasted several valuable seconds. But she could move incredibly fast, all of a sudden. Or was the rest of the world just moving slow? Whatever the case, she knew the soldier had a full clip inside the submachine-gun in a mere second, and she shoved the clip back inside the gun.

Another caveat of Seed Mode. She knew how to hold the thing, just by seeing how both soldiers had carried the weapon before. She had always been a fast learner, and she was memorizing at a inhuman pace. But as she stepped outside, she could hear engines. mobile suits and a transport, all taking off. She was almost too late. Almost. There was one thing she could do.

_'I must save Kira.'_ Lacus continued to repeat in her mind as she pulled out the controller, and turned on the microphone. "Voice authorization, Lacus Clyne. Password, Shining God."

The rumble to her left confirmed her entry, and she strode towards the sound, and the hulking machine rising from the ground, almost nonchalantly, as if nothing was wrong. This was what being in Seed Mode did. There was no life, there was no purpose, there was no hesitation. She had to do what she needed to do, with whatever she needed to use at her disposal.

As she used the zip-line to go all the way up to the cockpit, she got a brief look at her reflection. She was still crying, even though she could see clearly. Why? Why was she still crying? She couldn't understand. It didn't make any sense to cry. She wiped her eyes, but the tears wouldn't stop. It was as if something was bleeding inside of her, and the tears was representing that. She had to ignore it. She had a mission, and she could not stop until she had accomplished it.

_'I must save Kira.'_ She repeated in her mind as she ignited the engines, and her gigantic machine roared to life and soared through the night sky.

The special-ops soldier thought he had the chance to breathe. The operation had gone fairly smoothly, other than the loss of a pair of troopers, losses he had been prepared for. He had already known that Wolf and Giraffe had been doomed the moment he sent them in there.

That was not a cry of physical anguish. That was all mental. He just knew.

He knew some things about Seed Mode. They had done tests on it. Supposedly, any Coordinator could do it, plus most Slants, and even a few Naturals. And even the most gentle, sweet-hearted Coordinator could become a killing machine with the Seed Mode activated.

He had a feeling that was what had happened, and he had sent Wolf and Giraffe in to buy some time so everyone else could get away before the squad was on the receiving end of a Seed rampage.

The squad had been sent with mobile suits in addition to the transport, where their target was still unconscious and unresponsive. Hopefully, they'd be gone before the person who went Seed caught up. The last thing the special-ops soldier wanted to do was die to a former pop princess.

She wasn't the target, though. There was no need to try and kill her. Who would believe her, anyway? They had a perfect Lacus Clyne already. Ironically, the real Lacus Clyne would be considered the imposter.

Suddenly, a sensor beeped. The special-ops soldier got on the radio. "What is it?"

"We have an enemy mobile suit inbound. It's classification is...is the Freedom Gundam."

So our pursuer caught up anyway. The soldier sighed. "You and the rest of the ZAKUs make a diversion, distract her in order for us to get away. Remember, the rendezvous is the old Carpentaria base."

"Understood." The pilot said, and communication was stopped.

The specal-ops soldier knew he would never speak to that pilot again, or any of the ZAKU pilots for that matter. Even an untrained pilot could do some spectacular damage in the Freedom, especially in Seed Mode. Now the only hope was to escape.

The special-ops soldier did not want to see what would happen if the berserker, whether it was Lacus Clyne or someone else, caught up. The results were not going to be pretty. Also likely to be fatal.

_'I should have killed her.'_ The soldier thought. This was the price he was going to pay for his mercy. He hoped he would live so he could regret it.

The target was trying to flee, while the escorts were going to try to rush her, in order to stop her once and for all. She didn't have proper training on this Gundam, or any Gundam for that matter, but she knew how Kira flew it. It wouldn't be that hard to perform a passable imitation.

She turned on the automatic targeting, and locked on to all of the pursuers. She needed to wipe them all out at once before they tried to surround her. It would be an easy task, all it took was one pull of the trigger after she was locked on to every enemy she desired to destroy.

She fired. Several bright flashes erupted from her machine's cannons, and rushed with utmost precision towards all of her targets. They were all hit in the chest areas, in the cockpits, vaporizing the occupants. The machines sparked and exploded one after another, illuminating the night with bright red fireballs before they fell to to the ground in burnt, shattered pieces. With those obstacles out of the way, she could track the transport carrying the one she loved. And she found it. Immediately she put power to the engines and accelerated. Her machine's powerful thrust pressed her back against her seat as the machine propelled itself towards its target.

She wasn't going to dare to try to shoot the transport down. Doing that would risk killing Kira. No, she was going to have to use a different tatic if she wanted him back. She caught up to the transport in less than a minute, and as she expected, it was defenseless. They had shot their bolt when the ZAKUs had been annihilated. But she needed to bring the transport down anyway.

She moved the Freedom's right hand towards the cockpit, while the left reached towards a different area of the transport. The Freedom's hands became vises. The cockpit imploded, with both the pilot and co-pilot being crushed inside the Freedom's right fist. The left hand, for its part, immediately halted all momentum, and effectively made the transport docile and helpless in her hands. She was almost finished. She had almost won.

The next part of this was going to be the hard part. She could not risk killing Kira. She was going to have to defeat the final soldiers with the gun she had grabbed from the dead commando back at the school. She could do it. There was no fear in her anymore, or any remorse. By being in Seed Mode, she had parted ways with all of that, at least temporarily.

The Freedom landed on the ground, and carefully set the shattered transport to the ground. She prepared the submachine-gun. Once this was finished, she wouldn't have to kill again. She could try to go back to the way she had been. But was it even possible anymore?

No, it wasn't her problem. She couldn't fret about it. She would lose her focus, and the cause of the anger and torment that had sent her into this rampage in the first place. The moment she snapped out of it, she would die, and she could not die. She needed to finish what she had started. She unlocked the cockpit, and prepared the zip-line.

_'Kira, I've almost saved you.'_ Lacus thought as she descended to the ground, and prepared for her final assault.

Kira stirred in time to discover that he had been restrained in a chair, handcuffs keeping him unable to move. He tried to get a clear vision on things, but he couldn't see well enough, or hear. Suddenly, he felt someone touching his hands. "Who's there?"

"It's me." The voice was familiar, but it sounded so hollow, so far away.

"Who?" Kira repeated.

"It's me, Kira."

Kira's eyes finally opened, and he finally saw the room. He was in the back on some ruined transport aircraft, and there were three commandos laying on the ground, blasted in the head with precision. They had been completely, utterly, slaughtered.

"Where...where the hell am I?"

"It doesn't matter. I'm here to save you. We'll be back where we belong soon."

Suddenly, the handcuffs fell away, and Kira felt his arms become free. He examined them, to make sure nothing was broken. Surprisingly, none were. Despite how brittle he had to be, he hadn't been harmed in any way by his kidnappers, other than being on the receiving end of chloroform.

The source of the voice suddenly appeared to his right and walked in front of him, the source's back turned. But Kira knew who it was, just by looking at the hair.

"Lacus?" Kira quietly asked.

Lacus turned around, and Kira saw a horrifying sight.

It wasn't just that her nightgown was torn in multiple places. Or the fact that she was carrying a gun. Or even that specks of blood were all over her. It was her eyes. They were so cold, emotionless, focused, fearless, without remorse. It looked like she had been crying recently, but had stopped. Then Kira realized what that meant.

'Lacus...Lacus saw the Seed?' Kira thought.

"Do you need help, Kira?" Lacus asked softly. Even her voice sounded like it was coming from another world, or another being, like she wasn't quite human.

"Uh, no, Lacus." Kira managed awkwardly, and he forced himself to his feet. The smell on her was becoming repugnant, he could barely keep himself from throwing up. He had to get out of here, out of this nightmare. As he began to stagger out of the transport, Lacus calmly led the way towards the Freedom. Kira was stunned to see it. Lacus had the code and voice authorization to activate it, but he had no idea she could actually use it. Unless she truly had no idea to fly it, and all of this was because of the Seed. Kira had a feeling what the truth was.

"Please grab on." Lacus said, as she aimed her zip-line at the cockpit. Kira obeyed without a sound, and they were brought up to the open cockpit. The cockpit hissed shut, and Lacus turned on the engines. The Freedom roared to life and took off, and it took Kira a lot of effort to not bump into Lacus as they blasted away. There was only silence for the next several moments. Kira wanted to say something, but wasn't sure what. Finally, he came up with something. "Lacus, are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Kira." Lacus answered.

"Lacus, you can calm down." Kira said. "It's over."

"I said I'm fine." Lacus repeated.

The slight tremble in her voice suggested that Seed Mode was finally failing. Kira knew he had to keep pressing. He needed to see Lacus again. The Lacus he knew. Not this...berserk variation.

"Lacus, it's all right." He begged. "Please, I'm right here. Just relax."

"Kira..." Lacus whimpered.

"You can relax." Kira repeated.

There was silence, and then Lacus took a teary, soft breath. "Oh, Kira..."

"You see, you're fine." Kira sighed in releif.

Lacus held her hands in front of her face, as if she had never seen them before. Her voice trembled with sadness and horror. "Kira, what have I done? I couldn't...I couldn't stop myself, Kira..."

She brought her hands to her face and sobbed. The Freedom immediately started going off course and Kira had to engage the autopilot in order to keep them from falling into the ocean.

Lacus' trembling hands ran through her hair as she shook violently. "I became a monster, Kira...I felt nothing. I felt nothing at all."

"Lacus, it's okay." Kira said softly, as he wrapped his arms around her the best he could. The pain in her voice was so heartwrenching that he felt himself beginning to cry too. She had killed so many people for him. It wasn't right. It should have been anyone but Lacus. Anyone else.

"Is this...is this what it felt like, Kira? To have no feelings, to only kill...Kira, this is why you're in so much pain, isn't it? I finally understand, Kira...I finally understand." And she sobbed into his thin chest as they flew through the sky.

Kira tried to stay calm, but couldn't. Lacus had done all of this for his sake. It was like he had thought earlier. She had changed herself to suit his needs, and now she had done so again, becoming a berserker in order to get the power to rescue him.


	129. Convergence

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 129**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

"Lexi, we need some advice here..." Misato declared to the air as she stood on the bridge of the warship Katsuragi, summoning an avatar of the AI from the holoprojectors which were discreetly hidden throughout the ship. To save on processing power while she did her best to recreate all her destroyed updates and patches, as well as repairing damage to her physical systems and still upholding all her regular duties and jobs, Lexi was only sending avatars out when specifically asked for help, rather than manifesting them seemingly at random as she had used to do. The Lexi that appeared here was wearing office-casual shirt and skirt, her programming adapted to make her visually fit in with whatever environment her avatar manifested in; suit and tie when serving as an assistant for the Chief Representatives, military uniform when assisting the military, and office-casual when at various civilian agencies. She'd lost a good deal of the personality that she'd built up over the last few decades, and she was more business-like than whimsical these days.

"It's all wrong." Lexi said almost at once, looking not at the data on the screen, but actually out through the sonar and radar sensors themselves. "Sensors are all recalibrated and the readings stay the same. There's a massive amount of biological presences out in the ocean, some of them very large. I would crossreference with recent data to search for matches, but it's all been destroyed." Lexi scowled for a moment, just a flicker in the image of her avatar's face. It was going to take her a long time to get over the humiliation and trauma of the attack she couldn't even really remember anymore. Someone had found a chink in her and Nami's armor and exploited them both, she felt violated on a fundamental level. She'd never thought she would understand what humans felt like when they said they were embarassed or humiliated, but now that she did, she really wished she didn't. "But I don't need archived data to tell me that storm isn't behaving as nature says it should."

"What do you mean?" Asuka asked, missing the days when she and the rest of the crew would laugh and joke with the AI's impish avatars.

"For one thing, the storm is moving against prevailing wind and tidal currents. For another, there is no hot and cold front at the bow of the storm, nor is there a low pressure system beneath it. In short, there is no way for that storm to actually be in existence through any natural causes. It's just a bunch of water droplets being suspended in midair to simulate stormclouds." Lexi folded her arms across her chest and frowned again, holding the expression this time. "All of my data protocols that I might use to advise me of what to do in this kind of situation were corrupted and purged, but if I had to recommend a course of action; I'd say call someone in the government as quickly as possible. Something is coming this way, and it doesn't want us to know about it."

"So what exactly are we looking at then, Lexi?" Kira Yamato asked, half his attention on the wall screen in the conference room adjacent to his main working office, where he would meet with his assistants and secretaries, advisors and other aides to dicuss matters of delegation, responsibility and policy on an informal level. The other half of his attention was on the boneless barbque rib sandwich on garlic toasted cheese bread and slathered with onions, peppers and several different types of tangy sauces, since it was lunch time and having missed breakfast in order to make another meeting with some of the USN military commanders that were moving their troops around Orb in preparation for deployment to Carpentaria Base, he was famished. Technically you weren't supposed to eat in the conference room, but what was the point of being the head of government if you couldn't bend the rules a little bit from time to time? Especially when he had no lesser guest than the Chief Representative of the Orb Union herself; Cagalli Yula Athha, having stopped by for a light discussion after they had lunch, bringing him one of his favorite types of sandwiches, and a plate of flatbread, grilled meat and kebab sauces for herself, an African dish she'd acquired a taste for in her youth.

"This storm system is even now striking the outer edge of the Glasshouse field." Lexi, replete in her formal business wear, said, pointing one holographic arm at the radar graphic being displayed on the wall screen. A color representation of the situation appeared in 3D off to the side of the screen, since the conference chamber was equipped with a multitude of holoprojectors which could even turn the entire room into a projection display if need be. Lexi grabbed the 3D representation and pulled it down onto the conference room table, flicking her fingers to expand the representation to all but fill the table, leaving clear spots for the Supreme Commander and Chief Representative's food. Orb's landmass and Nara-Attha city in miniature crowded at the far end of the table, with the harbor and then several miles of open water extending out towards the end of the table where Kira and Cagalli were sitting, eventually meeting the pure white shell of the Glasshouse energy field and then the ocean beyond, right in front of the two huamns, where the dark grey stormclouds were boiling and roiling as they brushed up against the Glasshouse field and began to slowly osmose through.

"Remind me to find an umbrella before I leave for home tonight." Kira remarked, noting how dark the clouds were, which heralded a significant release of precipitation. "I assume the commercial and military fleets have been warned we have a major storm incoming?"

"In more ways than one." Lexi answered, her reply cryptic until she added sonar data to the projection, the ocean depths underneath the stormclouds suddenly boiling and roiling with just as much motion as the clouds above them were. Color coding identified the uncountable myriad of sonar returns as belonging to biological organisms, not technological vessels, but the sheer numbers involved brought both Cagalli and Kira's chewing lips to a halt. The ocean was packed solid for miles in every direction and almost a half mile deep, it didn't take much of an intellectual leap to realize that this was not normal. Fish sometimes congregated in massive shoals that could cover miles in length, but never so much depth, and the way the organisms all stayed cohesive and very much under the cover of the stormclouds was more than just a little disquieting. "Long range cameras have so far been unable to visually penetrate the mist and clouds, but we do have some thermal scans showing some very large creatures on the surface out there." Lexi informed them.

"Best guess as to what the hell is going on? Some sort of mass migration of ocean life?" Cagalli asked and suggested.

"Perhaps, but that wouldn't explain why the storm has been moving against prevailing wind currents for the past eight hours, nor why the biological swarm is so conscientious about staying under the stormclouds, which I might add offers excellent visual cover and sensor baffling to warships in orbit." Lexi answered, leaving the elephant in the room unspoken.

Even with her recent damage and loss of a years worth of personality, it didn't take Lexi more than a nanosecond to realize that things were about to go crazy. "Sir, Ma'am, we have an incoming transmission, origin point the center of the storm, surface of the ocean. Its being transmitted over all civilian and most of Orb's military comm frequencies, including our top secret ones. I don't know how to else to say this...but the transmission sender claims to be Hope Yamato, and she wants to talk."

"Hope...?" Cagalli's eyes went a bit glassy with shock as she sat back in her chair, almost dribbling kebab sauce onto her pants as she tried to make sense of why her sister would be out there in the middle of an unnatural storm and suddenly wanting to talk to them, when she'd made more than clear at Victoria that she had little enough to say to her former friends and allies.

"Is there a video transmission as well?" Kira asked, pushing his sandwich aside as he slipped back into Supreme Commander mode. "Get my military advisors in here on the double! Locate Captain Zala, Commander Joule and Commander Elsman at once and tell them to report to their Gundams ASAP! I want the Eternal and the Purity deploying as soon as they get their crews on board. By Hameya's fiery ass, how did they get this close to us without us noticing!"

"There is a video transmission, and its directed at the National Palace on our standard frequencies. Whoever it is seems to know our comm protocols very well." Lexi answered, complying with Kira's barked orders at the same time, setting alarm klaxons to blaring across Orb's military bases and infastructure. "Should I pipe it in here?"

Kira shot a glance at Cagalli, who seemed to have recovered from her shock, a steely expression of determination crawling over her face as she shoved her own food aside and stood up. She caught his glance and nodded back in tacit agreement. If this was Hope, she definitely wanted to talk to him. Signalling Lexi to allow the transmission through and to establish a return conenction back for purposes of two way communication, Kira straightened his Representative's jacket a bit and adopted a tense but cautiously optomistic pose in his chair as he swiveled to face the wall screen directly, as it blanked and fizzled with static for a moment before the two way connection went through, and the picture cleared up. And then, despite himself, Kira could not avoid flinching a little in shock, hearing Cagalli gasp from where she stood behind him, as the unmistakable features of Hope Yamato, her bright amethyst eyes with their glowing gold cores, resolved on the screen.

Hope seemed to be standing outside, the bottom edges of the storm clouds visible on the top part of the screen, though whatever vessel she was on was not visible, probably intentionally, though from the mobile suits and soldiers and armored vehicles visible on other parts of the deck in the background, it was plainly massive. Lexi was already analyzing and comparing relative sizes and distances in the image to determine the actual size of the craft, as well as cataloging the various machines and troops on display, no doubt merely a fraction of the incoming force but it never hurt to collect information whenever possible. Kira and Cagalli though only had eyes for Hope, who was clad in a plain quasi-uniform of black and dark blue, Cagalli especially taken aback at how at ease Hope seemed in such clothing, given how uncomfortable she'd always seemed in Orb or Alliance colors. And then she gasped again when she saw what was belted at Hope's waist, the scabbard of what was unmistakably a large sword of some kind. Hope was actually wearing a weapon, openly, even comfortably!

Her sister had her arms folded across her chest, a pose of challenge, her face locked down in a serious mask, a world of difference between the somewhat dorky but lovable image of her she still cherished in her mind. No matter how powerful she got, she'd always been her nerdy little sister in some ways, uncomfortable with the limelight, content to stand by the walls while others took center stage. Hope had never been a leader, she'd always been an inspirational person, but not really a leader, not like Athrun or Yzak or Cagalli herself or Lacus. She was smart and capable, so smart and capable, but she wasn't good at giving orders or being responsible for other's actions, especially in combat. Put her on the spot and she'd get a nervous look on her face, a look that said 'save me, Cagalli' or 'help me, Lacus, I'm out of my depth here'. If Hope was even slightly nervous now, for all that she was addressing an entire nation on public channels and staring her own estranged sister in the eyes, it wasn't apparent in the slightest. She'd hardly ever seen her more determined and focused actually. Hope had the look of a woman faced with an unpleasant task, but one she had no choice but to complete. And that was a worrisome look to have sent your direction.

"People of Orb." Hope said, her voice steady and quite clear, despite whipping sea winds which blew her tousled brown hair into an even more messy than usual state. "My name is Hope Yamato, sister of Queen Cagalli Yula Attha. I appear before you today as an envoy and official of the recently reformed Earth Alliance. My rank and title is Executor, one who executes the will of the people of the Earth and protects them from those who would do them harm. Those like ZAFT, and its component member-states. Such as Orb." Hope paused and let that sink in for a moment. "As a former citizen of Orb, I have no desire to inflict harm upon its populace, but we of the Earth are embroiled in a war...a war not of our choosing, with ZAFT, and thus with Orb. I am appearing here before you today to announce my intention to end Orb's participation in this war once and for all. This will be your first and only warning. All personnel who value their lives should evacuate all of Orb's military bases, ports, warships and facilities, even the top secret ones we aren't supposed to know about. In two hours time I will commence a systematic and comprehensive disarmament and dismantling of Orb's ability to wage or assist in this war. Anyone who remains in a military zone or ship at that time will become my enemy and will be destroyed by my hand or those of my troops."

Hope shifted her posture slightly, dropping one hand to the hilt of her sword, and giving Cagalli the chilling impression that she was looking her specifically in the eyes, though she knew it was an optical illusion. "I strongly urge anyone living near a military facility, especially including the military harbor in Nara-Attha City and the area around the Kaguya mass driver facility, to evacuate to safer ground immediately. I will be destroying all of Orb's military facilities and structures, as well as some civilian structures, such as the mass driver, that are being used in a military capacity. I will be deploying a weapon against which you have no defenses or capability of stopping, so any attempt at resistance will only increase your casualties significantly. The best thing you can do is stand down, stand back and stay out of my way. Conceivably, there need not be a single Orb casualty today, if you heed my warning fully, though the property damage will be quite significant." Hope glared into the screen, her eyes all but blazing with the seriousness that she was trying to convey. "You have two hours from this moment to evacuate the targeted areas that are being transmitted to you now. You will get no further warnings and no extensions on your time limit, and any attack upon us before the end of the time limit will result in my attack launching then and there. I am Executor Hope Yamato of Garden City, and this is your only chance to make this a bloodless battle. Please do so, as I do not have any rancour for Orb or its people."

"Shit..." Lexi commented as she received the data transmission from the forces within the storm. "That's Hope Yamato all right, and she must have been paying a lot of attention during all those Orb Defense Force briefings over the last dozen years. She knows where everything is! Even the stuff that should be above her clearance level!" Lexi shot a half accusatory glance towards Kira and Cagalli.

"If you didn't want her to know about it, you shouldn't have told me or Kira." Cagalli retorted, her defense somewhat distracted as she struggled to assimilate Hope's announcement.

"Yes, thankfully we do have a few installations that fit on that list, but not many." Lexi answered, though there was no heat in her voice. Reprimanding the Queen for her personal decisions was not something she was programmed to do, all she could do was point out the facts of the situation.

And then Kira brought up something which had been troubling Cagalli as well. "I wonder what she meant when she said that she would be attacking with a weapon against which we have no defense or chance of stopping?"

"Lets ask her!" Cagalli decided, gesturing for Lexi to turn on the two way audio. "Hope? Hope, this is Cagalli. Can you hear me?"

"I can hear you." Hope replied, changing from a wide band broadcast targeted at all of Orb to just the single channel going to the Orb National Palace. "Though I don't think we have much to talk about. Your time is ticking."

"You have no intention of negotiating with us at all?" Kira cut in, somewhat archly, even as he conducted other business silently with Lexi on the side.

"I'm not a negotiator, I'm an Executor. A doer, not a talker." Hope answered with a shrug and not an ounce of bend in her voice. "I drew my line in the sand a long, long time ago, and ZAFT chose to be stupid, and to cross that line. Orb has chosen to stand with ZAFT in fighting this unjust and frankly evil war against the people of Earth. That makes Orb, and you both, my enemy now. Even as things are, my own side isn't happy with my tactics here today, they would have preferred to just invade and raze Orb to the ground...as you attempted to do to Seattle, for instance. You have one hour and fifty eight minutes to evacute my target areas and abandon all the warships before I destroy them. I suggest you make better use of your time than talking to me."

"Hope, wait!" Cagalli demanded, utilizing a few of her more divine abilities to forcibly keep the communications link open. "Please, wait! You can't be serious...you wouldn't really recreate a scenario similar to the invasion of Orb during the Bloody Valentine Wars, down here, targeted at our military or not, would you?"

"Those events are not familiar to me, but if there is one thing you shouldn't doubt, Cagalli, it is my resolve to see that Orb is taken out of this war permanently. If you won't stand up to the evil that is ZAFT then I have no choice but to take matters into my hands and employ whatever means I see fit, no matter how destructive they might be, to knock you down so hard that you won't be able to get back up again in time to make a difference to the outcome of this war." Hope paused and sighed, her face softening a little bit. "I don't want to kill anyone, Cagalli, that has not and will not ever change. But Durandel and his shitty administration, along with anyone who supports, aides or abets them, which is Orb right now, have to be stopped at any and all costs. Don't fight me, please. I don't want your blood on my hands or my conscience, but don't you dare doubt that I will kill anyone who does not heed my warning! Even Athrun. Even you. So please, evacuate those bases, abandon your warships, and if you mean to fight, then by the love of Hameya, get the civilians out of the fucking way!" Hope slashed her hand in an obvious signal and the communication was cut.

"Lexi...if she does employ nanite warheads, can we stop them?" Kira asked, after a few seconds of watching his stunned Queen stare at the blank wall screen.

"We might be able to at least contain any warheads within a Positron field. For that matter, the Glasshouse should destroy any nanites that try to pass through it." Lexi replied after some consideration. "But the only real way to destroy nanites, modified or otherwise, should it be deployed inside the Glasshouse, will be anti-matter weaponry, which only Celestial Being possesses. I imagine they are already scrambling to respond to this announcement."

Cagalli only nodded, her stomach churning as she fought off a flashback of her encounter with nanites aboard the former Archangel during the Bloody Valentine Wars, millenia ago. That kind of awful scenario could very well be aimed at large sections of Orb territory right now, if Hope really was serious in her determination to destroy Orb's military forces no matter the cost, nanites were the best way to do that. Even if it was only a short duration version, five to ten hours of growth in a terrestrial environment would be enough to destroy any base, even an entire city perhaps, and the only cure would be more destructive still, assuming that Celestial Being would even be willing to divert the Divinity Gundam to such a destructive purpose! "Do we evacuate, or do we fight?" She asked, looking at Kira, in whose hands that decision would ultimatly rest, no matter her popular influence. "It kills me to admit it, but I don't think she's bluffing. She'll do exactly as she said she would."

"Lexi...begin immediate large scale evacuations of all civilian populations within a ten mile radius of any targeted point. Bring them inland as much as possible, most of our installations are on or near the coast and any fighting will be happening around them. Shut down the mass driver and put all defense forces on highest alert." Kira ordered, his hands clenched into fists on the arms of his chair. "Like or not, Hope was correct in at least one thing. We are part of ZAFT, though reluctantly, and we are now facing a credible threat to our nation. If I were to accede to Hope's demands it would be the end of my administration and any illusion of Orb's independence from ZAFT...Durandel would have me arrested and Orb put under martial law. I'm sorry, Cagalli, but we don't have any choice but to resist with all our strength. Orb does NOT allow others to interfere with our affairs, as your father once famously said. And though we have at times been forced to swallow those words, now is not such a time."

"I know." Cagalli said, sagging backwards on unsteady feet. "It's another impossible situation...if we did as Hope wanted, ZAFT would dismantle us and all but destroy Orb. If we're gonna go down, even against our own stupid sister, I'd prefer it be with a shout, not a whimper. If Hope wants to knock us out of this war, if she wants to lead a hostile attack on Orb soil, if she wants to destroy our ability to stand up for ourselves, then she's going to have to do it over my dead body!" Cagalli held her head high, even as tears began to gather in the corners of her eyes. "Whether she's gone crazy or whether she can just see what we can't understand, it doesn't change the fact that we have to stand against her now and do everything in our power to stop her. She has become Orb's enemy and she must be confronted and, if possible, shot down or captured." Cagalli turned and headed for the door.

"Cagalli, where are you going?" Kira asked, having been prepared to ask Lexi for a conference with Gilbert Durandel that he would have thought she'd want to be around for.

"It's always been the duty of Orb's Monarch to stand and defend their people's interest upon a battlefield if they were so able." Cagalli replied over her shoulder, her tone now just as steely and determined as Hope's had been. "I may not be in the best shape, but I can't worry about that now. My people...our people...need me to inspire them even as they need you to lead and direct them, Kira. I can best do that on the battlefield, in the Akatsuki. And who knows, while I'm out there I might be able to talk some sense into my stupid sister. She's still in there, somewhere, the Hope that we know and love. If anyone can find her and bring her out now...its going to either be me, or Mayu."

"Then I wish you luck. May you go with Hameya's blessing, my Queen." Kira said, standing and bowing slightly to her in the courtly fashion so rarely used except at the most formal of ceremonial events anymore.

"May she bless us all." Cagalli answered, half to herself. "Because I think we might be needing all the help we can get."


	130. An Unwanted Enemy

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 130**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

"Kira Jesus Yamato." The amethyst-eyed man called out. "Divinity Gundam, launching!" The Divinity's mouthplate had split down the center, the two halves having slid to either side, revealing the angelic machine's tooth-filled maw.

Meanwhile, due in part to the continued nuclear attacks carried out by ZAFT, the national deficit in the United States of America had soared to over 20 trillion dollars and was in a freefall. Unemployment had risen to the unheard of level of over fifty percent, dwarfing the worst of the Great Depression. Month after month the figures of unemployment came in; half a million per month, 750,000, a million, and finally over a million lost jobs per month, month after month. Then the domino effect that everyone knew was coming hit as the economy just unraveled.

_'There's nothing here anymore...'_ Meyrin Hawke thought to herself, as she along with her husband; Athrun Zala, stood looking over the ruins. Broken skulls and fractured bones, torn cloth faded by the hot sun, all of it buried among rubble and half-collapsed walls. Perhaps half a dozen buildings still stood with their roofs intact, but the glass had been shattered from the windows long ago.

It was only one of many such sites. There were millions of them, perhaps even more. Meyrin could see the place where the explosions had started, marked by the scorched earth and decimated buildings. From that point the destruction spread. There were blackened, charred bones nearest. From a distance, they blended with the ground, but the closer she drew, the more distinguished they became.

Some of the bones were still white in places, from the people curled in shelters and against walls when the explosions tore them apart. There were mostly complete skeletons, and hundreds of jaws with the teeth still attached, many with silver fillings that reflected the sun. Nothing had disturbed them in nearly a decade.

"This place is dead." Athrun finally sighed, stating the obvious as he stood beside her, watching her facial expressions shift between outrage and sadness.

"I know it is." Meyrin grimly replied.

"Should we move on?" Athrun asked after a moment of silence.

Meyrin looked at him. They had been visiting ruined cities in the more heavily war-torn timelines, searching for some sign that not everything in those timelines was destroyed, and at some point, about a week ago, they had become trapped in the timeline in which they now resided. Only a few small rural communities remained, and of even those more than half the population was usually found to be dead on account of the diseases that swept through the survivors in the months afterward.

"I don't think there's any point in continuing." Meyrin sighed.

Athrun regarded her. "What do you mean?"

"Look at where we are, Athrun." She sank down to her knees, putting her palms on the rocky ground. Fine glass shards pierced her hands. "We're trapped within one of the more war-torn timelines, the entire planet is like this. What we once were is gone. Now the people who are still alive struggle every day, slowly going mad as everywhere they search they find only this remnant of what was, and now will never be again. The people are all dead. There is no infrastructure, there is no communication anymore, not in these kinds of realities. We send out calls every day, Athrun, and no one within any of this war-torn timeline responds. The world as it was is gone in this reality, and eventually, if we get lucky, we're going to die too."

He looked down at her, then walked away for a while, until he couldn't hear her. Then he turned around and came back, walking slowly over the uneven ground, avoiding the bones that littered it. Beside her again, he knocked away the heavy skull of someone who hadn't lived to see the horrific aftermath of such planet-wide destruction, at least as it had occured in this timeline.

"They hailed it as 'the vengeance of god', Armageddon." Athrun said, clearing the ground beside Meyrin with his boot, then sitting beside her. "Maybe it was theirs, but it wasn't mine."

'Nor was it mine.' Meyrin dropped her head miserably, staring at the ground and feeling her blood slowly seep into the dust. "I wish I'd gone with them."

Cars and busses rusted and wore down slowly across the landscape, overturned and blackened hunks of metal, more remnants of what was gone. When Meyrin closed her eyes, she could remember the reports that had covered the initial wave of chaos. There had been live footage then, of the same places she visited with Athrun sometimes. Only then, the bodies were not wasted away to bone and stringy hair. Then, the corpses of the dead had retained flesh, rent loose to be picked at by carnivorous birds. The people wore expressions of terror and pain, they were contorted with one another; lovers grasping each other and mothers futilely clutching their children to them.

It was terrifying when the reports stopped. When the networks fell, they expected that any time it would be the same for them. She couldn't remember which had terrified her more; the thought of being killed and looking like those people looked, or of surviving it and having to every day recall what it had been like.

"Now we sit in a world of the dead." Her voice had lost all emotion, she stared blankly at the distant mountains where trees still grew. She began crying, and once she had begun she could not stop herself, her shoulders shook and her throat closed over, her eyes burning. "I want to die, Athrun, I want to end it."

"We can't die, we're immortal." Athrun said. "We just need to wait. The temporal distress beacons in our mobile suits are sure to be noticed by the Excalibur's bridge crew."

Suddenly, Meyrin gazed at the one of the few skyscrapers which was still standing. Through the blown-out windows, she could see dozens upon dozens of figures shuffling around inside. They appeared long and disfigured. They seemed subhuman, they were horrible, they were malicious, they were frightening.

"Athrun, I think we have a problem." She finally said, as they both moved towards their waiting mobile suits and allowed the ziplines to carry them to the cockpit of their respective machines, carefully watching the crowd of figures as they did so. The mass of figures suddenly bolted from the windows, then a moment later, the doors of the building burst open, releasing a flood of screaming undead bodies. The smell of rotting flesh filling the air.

Athrun and Meyrin watched silently as the undead swarmed around the feet of their mobile suits, clawing uselessly at the MCPS armor.

Meanwhile, the Orb Union was about to come under attack by the forces of the new Earth Alliance, lead by none other than Hope Yamato.

Orb's mass driver was easily the most heavily defended location in the entire country, especially given that it was the last and only known mass driver to still be in operational condition on Earth, neither Orb, Celestial Being or ZAFT could afford to lose it, and as such, no expense had been spared in fortifying it in the wake of the fracturing of the timelines.

Entire sand dunes and small hills split down the middle, revealing themselves to be camouflaged firing positions with Gottfried class high energy beam cannon turrets or dual 800mm linear cannons, which could hurl high explosive shells more than thirty miles out to sea. Lohengrin category positron weapons had been considered, but the potential backblast damage they often inflicted on the surrounding environment was deemed too much to risk near the deceptively fragile mass driver facility, and so large caliber hyper impulse cannon bunkers had been emplaced there instead, along with dozens of anti-ship class missile silos buried in the hillsides, along with scores of smaller caliber beam weapons, physical cannon and rocket or missile launcher emplacements for close in and anti-vehicle defenses. Beam shield umbrellas were already forming in the sky above the island and the mass driver, to shield against long range enemy bombardments, and torpedo launchers mounted on the undersea support struts of the mass driver launch rails were just waiting for targets in order to open fire.

"You don't honestly think they're actually going to just stand back and let you take out their military infastructure just like that, do you, Hope?" William Sutherland asked, walking to a halt a few paces behind Hope Yamato as she stood near the top of Leviathan's head, staring through the slowly swirling mist of telekinetically suspended water droplets at the faint orange shimmer of the Glasshouse field, and through it, Nara-Attha city a few miles distant. The city was too distant, and too obscured by the distorting effects of the field and the storm haze, for Hope to make out any details beyond a great deal of activity in the harbor itself. It could be an evacuation, it could just be them digging in. She hoped it was the former, but she was prepared for the latter. She knew her sister and her friends after all, they weren't the sort to just take something like this lying down, for their own good or not. In truth, she was just hoping they got as many of the civilians out of the way as possible, that was her main goal in sending that message.

"Honestly?" Hope replied caustically, not even turning her head to look at Sutherland. "Would you even know honesty if it came up and ripped your face off, Sutherland?" Hope shook her head and chuckled sadistically. "What I believe or what I want doesn't matter, I'm prepared to act either way. If they step back as I ask, so much the better. If they come out to confront us, well, then there will be a great loss of life and they will still be destroyed."

"And you say I'm dishonest? Don't even try to pretend you're not bothered by the idea of going up against your own friends and family like this." Sutherland retorted flatly. "Do you really think you'll be able to do what must be done when the time comes? Can you really kill Athrun, Yzak, Dearka, Miriallia or Cagalli if they confront you?"

"Are you questioning my resolve or my loyalty, Sutherland? In either case, its rich coming from someone like you." Hope still refrained from looking back at her companion. "I have said what I mean to do, and who I mean to do it for. I have once more drawn my line in the sand, and though I will not look forward to fighting Athrun or the others, neither will I avoid it if they come looking for me. I am a human, Sutherland. It's taken me a long, long time to realize that, but now that I have, there is no going back to the life I lived before, any more than you yourself could or would. My first responsibility is to the people of Earth, my second is to my pursuit of justice and morality, and my third is to humanity as a whole, ZAFT included. If I could end this war without killing anyone, I would. If I could end this war with words and treaties instead of combat, I would. Since I cannot do either of those things, I will end this war, by whatever means I can. Even if Orb must become my battleground in the process."

"And what about these reports we've gotten from the troops in the African Theatre, about whatever it was that so decimated the Kraken and Megaladon? Our instuments have detected a great deal of activity on the ZAFT communications networks, and we've gotten reports of large ship movements in low orbit in the last hour. Regardless of what Orb does, ZAFT is planning to fight and fight hard for their mass driver. We can expect them to hold nothing back." Sutherland pointed out.

"I should hope they don't." Hope said, her frown becoming a smile for just an instant. "They had their chance to break us once and for all at Seattle. Now it is our chance to break them on their territory, and show the citizens of ZAFT firsthand just what sort of terrible, awful conflict they have embroiled themselves in." Hope finally glanced over her shoulder at the robed and hooded figure of Sutherland. "Whatever superweapon or new Gundam ZAFT might have, it can't be any worse than me, and I'm prepared for that. Are you?"

"You needn't worry about me. Unlike you, I was never the sort to take stupid risks and push myself beyond my abilities." Sutherland answered haughtily. Hope thought about pointing out a certain time in a certain desert when a certain person tried to pilot the GAT-X105 Strike Gundam without any skill or training and only ended falling flat on his face, but why go through that sort of argument all over again? Though Hope could feel Leviathan's amusement as she picked up on her train of thought and saw the past situation play out as Hope remembered it. Sai Argile may have been more collected and reserved than her on a general level back then, but even Sai had his moments where he did some very, very stupid things too.

"And are you ready to fufill your part of my plan? I asked you and your people along because you're supposed to be experts in this sort of thing, but if I can't count on you to follow my plan because of our personal disagreements..." Hope began to say, only to be interrupted.

"I'll do as you have asked, don't fret. Given who it's coming from, its an inspired plan, I doubt ZAFT or Orb have any inkling of what you have in store for them. No doubt they are completely freaking out right now, thinking you intend to douse them with some form of nanoweapon or anti-matter bomb." Sutherland smiled in a predatory fashion.

"If they think that, they know me less than I thought they did." Hope replied with a shake of her head. "Though Cagalli did mention the previous invasions of Orb. Understandably, she seemed rather distressed about it."

Sutherland merely shrugged. Despite his studied nonchalance, Hope did not believe a single word he said. Sutherland knew something. It was just a hunch, a feeling, nothing that Hope could define. But she knew that William Sutherland was lying. Perhaps it was Leviathan sensing the dishonesty...no matter how good Sutherland was at concealing his emotions and thoughts from Hope, doing the same to Leviathan was beyond the capabilities of a simple human being. Perhaps, if Sutherland had not been around, Hope might have been tempted to fudge things a little...it wasn't like she was wearing a watch and counting the seconds. But after castigating the other Alliance leader for his own dishonest tendencies, it would hardly be right to not stand by his promises now.

Hope let out an inaudible sigh, wanting to conceal her own distaste of her current actions, not wanting Sutherland to be put on guard too soon if possible. "You should return to the Exemplar, we only have a few minutes remaining and I don't intend to let them think I was just bluffing. Given how fast you move, you'll need that time in order to get into position."

"Yes, make fun of an injured man, that's classy, Hope." Sutherland retorted frostily, as he stamped away, carefully balancing himself on the uneven and sometimes slippery craggy skin of Leviathan's back. Hope watched him go, ready to go to his aid if he did actually end up slipping and falling, all other things aside, it was only polite to help someone if they happened to fall.

It had been only five minutes since the attack began, and already the Destroy Gundam had landed on the coast, its targets were Orb's military facilities, once they were gone, the Earth Alliance would pull back and wait to see the results.

Orb Union Astrays and Murasames, along with Aile Daggers, Jet Daggers, Launcher Daggers and Sword Daggers discarded by the Alliance, and GuAIZs and GINNs discarded by ZAFT and repurposed by the less-bigoted Orb Union, fired with everything they had at the massive mobile armor, but the positron reflectors took it all with nothing to show for the assault.

"How can we stop that thing?" One of the Launcher Dagger pilots asked.

"It doesn't matter!" A GINN pilot responded. "We have to hold it here! We won't let these assholes have their way with us!"

As though to slap the Orb Union in the face for their defiance, the Destroy's massive main cannons fired, obliterating several city blocks and everything within them.

"It's just one enemy!" One of the Astray pilots yelled. "The mobile suits are holding back! Surround and destroy it!"

Following the order, the Orb mobile suits began to swarm in from all directions, firing their rifles and missiles at it. A pair of BuCUEs, left over from the last war, charged at the Destroy, holding their fire and hoping to get beneath it and attack it from a position where the positron reflectors would do no good.

The Destroy's response was to fire the twenty composite plasma cannons mounted on the circumference of its backpack, obliterating dozens of mobile suits and sowing even more destruction across the city.

"Hope!" Sutherland's voice announced. "ZAFT drop pods incoming from above!"

"Got it." Hope said as her machine, the GAT-X777S Purity Gundam, which was essentially a copy of the legendary ZGMF-X10A Freedom Gundam, glanced that way. "Treize, Nena, take care of them."

"Yes, ma'am." The two pilots chorused.

The OZ-00MS Tallgeese and the GNW-003 Gundam Throne Drei rapidly shot into the sky. Treize hefted his machine's multi-phase beam rifle at one of the seven drop pods and fired, destroying it in a flash of fire, before immediately shifting his aim to another and repeating the process twice more. Nena, meanwhile, used both the Daini and Hitotsu to finish the remaining four.

From the burning wreckage, though, a half-dozen GOUFs and four Blaze ZAKU Warriors emerged.

"Hmph." Nena snorted. "Go, Fangs!"

As though responding to the verbal order rather than the manipulation of controls, the eight Fangs slid out of their locks, then shot from their storage units on the Drei's upper legs, soaring upwards at the ten ZAFT mobile suits. The pilots desperately opened fire on the Tallgeese and Drei, but the two Alliance pilots responded with their own weapons, blasting four units instantly, and the Fangs cleaned up the rest seconds later, allowing Nena to recall them.

The Tallgeese and Drei began their descent. As they did so, Nena looked over the devastation.

"How can anyone be this inhuman?" She murmured to herself.

The Destroy was single-handedly pushing back all that stood before it. Its mobile suit escort had, thus far, done little more than deal with the ZAFT forces dropped from orbit. But that was about to change.

"Hmm? What is that?" Hope murmured as two dozen large heat sources approached. "Zamza-Zahs?"

Indeed, the Orb Union had deployed all of the Zamza-Zahs in their current arsenal against the Destroy.

All of the Destroy's weapons fired at the Zamza-Zahs. The cloud of mobile armors quickly dispursed, dodging the blasts aimed at them, and instead rushed down and used their positron reflectors to defend the city.

"We won't let you Earth Alliance bastards kill any more innocent people!" One of the crewmen of the mobile armors shouted.

"I sympathize with you." Treize said. "But unfortunately..."

"We have a job to do." Nena finished. "Hope, leave this to Treize and myself. Our weapons will get through those reflectors easily."

"You heard the lady." Hope said. "Continue current mission."

As the Alliance forces complied with the order, a dozen ZAFT drop pods streaked through the sky. The pods quickly opened and unleashed their deadly cargo; reinforcements consisting of ZAKU Warriors and ZAKU Phantoms equipped with Blaze, Gunner or Slash Wizards.

As the ZAFT reinforcements landed, a massive pair of hanger doors opened on the opposite side of the island nation, and with the simultanious roar of dozens engines, along with a cloud of glowing afterimages and GN particles, the huge aerial aircraft carrier known as the Aigaion sped into the fight, a pair of shimmering white beam blades igniting along the leading edges of the wings, as countless anti-aircraft guns, flak cannons, air-to-air missile launchers and beam machine cannons opened fire, instantly filling the sky with a deadly barrage of beam blasts, machine gun rounds, missiles and flak.

"Targets in range." One of Lexi's holograms announced from the sensor console as the Katsuragi's bridge sank down into its combat state. Distance, 4500 and closing. Enemy is on course for Orb and launching mobile suits."

At the communications station, Maya Ibuki peered forward thoughtfully. "So they're just going to open fire without bothering to negotiate."

"Not if we have anything to say about it." Misato said. "Tristans, Isolde, Neidhardt, target the area around the enemy warships and fire. We'll force them away from the coast and then hit them with the Tannhäuser."

The Katsuragi's guns boomed and its missiles arced through the sky towards the approaching warships, which plunged to the side and threw up a wall of CIWS fire.

"Okay guys, since there wasn't time for a briefing, we're fighting to protect Orb, so don't fuck up." Maya said from her console. "Are you ready?"

"As ready as I'll ever be." Lunamaria Hawke's voice answered. Misato glanced up at the brown-haired communications officer and nodded.

"Then let's kick some ass!" Maya grinned.

The winged battleship shuddered as its catapults fired, the Eclipse and Twilight went rocketing out, and Misato sat back and steeled herself for a fight.

Kira Yamato threw his Divinity Gundam forward with a shout, a glowing white beam saber extending from the end of his rifle. Up ahead, a crimson Blaze ZAKU Warrior flung up its shield to deflect the blow, only for Kira to level off one of the Divinity's twin buster rifle in its left hand and vaporize the ZAKU with a searing yellow column of energy. But from the flames a Slash ZAKU plunged down towards him with a sweeping swipe from its beam axe, and Kira jammed the Divinity backward to dodge the blow.

The ZAKU charged forward, but a moment later a wave of beams plowed through it and tore it to flaming shreds, and in a blue and silver blur, the Savior Gundam shot by in mobile armor mode.

"Not having such a great day, are you, Undefeated of the East?" Shiho giggled.

Kira frowned back. "What the hell are you talking about?" He asked, storing the twin buster rifle on his machine's back

"Ah, I'll explain later." The Savior arced upward and went spiraling after the ZAFT warships. Kira shook his head and returned his attention to the oncoming team of red ZAKUs, the ones which had decended from a black Eternal-class cruiser which now floated a few miles off shore. A Gunner ZAKU sent a shimmering blast of red plasma streaming towards the Divinity; Kira threw his angelic mobile suit aside and returned fire with his own beam rifle, only for another Blaze ZAKU to streak in from above with its beam rifle blazing. Kira pulled back behind his beam shield, sparks flying around him, and waited for his opportunity.

"We'll do this the way we planned." Shinn said, clenching his fists around the Eclipse's controls as his Gundam sailed into battle. "There's an old warship wreck up there."

Luna smiled. "Don't worry, I know what to do."

With that, the Twilight whirled out of formation and set down softly on the charred hulk of a burning and abandoned Alliance aircraft carrier. Shinn glanced up ahead, at the force of mobile suits on approach. He could feel their fear, they were discouraged and desperate, and now there were well over three dozen mobile suits on their way in, weapons primed. They raised their guns and opened fire.

The seed burst in Shinn's mind, the beam wings snapped to life, and the Eclipse roared forward with its quantum crystal anti-ship sword drawn.

A wall of afterimages rushed up around the Gundam as it effortlessly danced around the hail of searing energy blasts, and with a resounding shriek, the Eclipse rushed in and slashed its first victim in half. The bisected IWSP Dagger exploded, only for a ZAKU Phantom with a Gunner Wizard to back away and level off its cannon. The Eclipse blasted forward, slammed its left-hand palm cannon clear through the ZAKU's cannon, and then ripped it in two with a sword stroke. A Blaze ZAKU Warrior lunged up from behind, beam rifle leveled off, and Shinn spared it a glance just as a beam blast from the far-off Twilight Gundam plowed through it from the right and blew it apart. Shinn backflipped over the cloud of flames and rushed down after the survivors, who had all backed away for distance and let loose a shimmering barrage of beam fire.

"Three of you down." Shinn grunted, and slammed down the booster as he saw his chance. "And here's four!" The closest Jet Windam seized its beam saber and flung itself forward with a downward hack, the Eclipse pounded the shining blade to the side with its sword, then slammed its palm cannon into the Windam's chest, and blew apart the blue mobile suit. Less than two seconds later, a wave of beam fire raced out of the sun and claimed another pair of mobile suits; a Slash ZAKU Warrior and a Launcher Dagger, and as the ZAFT and Alliance mobile suits backpedaled, the Eclipse seized its chance to rip one of the straggling mobile suits; a Blaze ZAKU Phantom, in half at the waist.

Shinn scanned the remaining mobile suits, waiting for them to make the next move, the fear pulsing from their cockpits.

"Did you guys really think you could do this without being punished?" He asked quietly. The enemy mobile suiits broke their formation and opened fire; the Eclipse snaked its way through their energy blasts and charged.

The Divinity Gundam let out an ear-shattering shriek as it suddenly turned to the Destroy Gundam, which had now been forced out over the ocean by the relentless barrage of weapons fire from the Aigaion.

"What do we think we're doing here?" Kira asked himself as the Divinity's wings of light flared into existence and the angelic mobile suit blazed towards the Destroy. "What are we doing to this world?"


	131. Forward to the Past

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 131**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

Kira Yamato and Hope Yamato responded instantly to the shaking that they knew were explosions. Looking at each other, they nodded.

"What was that?" Sai Argyle asked, nervous. "Were those explosions?" Not wanting to find out, the others began heading for the door, and the shelters beyond. Cagalli, Kira and Hope quickly followed them, heading out into the hallway. When Cagalli ran off, they both cursed silently.

Looking towards Sai, Kira yelled. "Hope and I will get her! You guys go ahead!" Ignoring their protests, the two Coordinators rushed down the hallway, each silently promising themselves they'd get a good explanation from the Princess of Orb.

A good minute later, they finally caught up to Cagalli, who was looking out over a large hanger. Down below, they saw three mobile suits, all in a nondescript gray color scheme.

"Damn it...the Earth Alliance's new mobile weapon...Father, you traitor!" She cried, slumping down. Kira and Hope exchanged looks, a mix of amused and stupefied expressions.

"Come on, Cagalli, let's get you to a shelter." Kira said, grabbing her hand and dragging her up. She snatched her hand away, looking angrily at Kira.

"What's your part in this? Did Father get you to help with this, Kira, Hope?" They both shook their heads, trying not to smile.

"We're here because we got into the Earth Alliance's files...and found this project." Hope began. "But, that's a story for another time!" Kira grabbed one hand while Hope gripped the other, both overpowering her and dragging her to the nearest shelter. Kira jabbed at the intercom, opening a channel to the occupants.

"Can you guys take my friend?" He yelled over the din, the chatter of rifles continuing.

"Sure, but that's all the room we have!" A man's voice replied, sounding tense.

"That'll be alright. I'll find another shelter." The two Coordinators then shoved Cagalli in the entrance, Hope waving idly as she raged in the elevator-like tube.

"Well, now that we've dealt with her, what'll we do about the Gundams?" Hope asked.

"Well, we could steal them...but what if we managed to get the crew to defect?" Kira grinned, sounding hopeful. Hope just stared. "What? I've looked over the crew manifest. If ZAFT managed to take out the higher officers, like we think they did, then the rest are just normal civilian workers. Most of the Alliance's command structure consists of the Nazis in Blue Cosmos affiliates over the more sensible people." Kira defended himself, against Hope's accusing stare. After a moment Hope relented.

"I suppose it could be possible...hey, isn't that Asuka?" The brown-haired woman pointed at the figure climbing the ladder of the mobile suit in the middle, one known as the GAT-X02E Berserker Gundam.

"I wouldn't be surprised if it was. You know her, always concerned about her projects..." Kira said, heading off towards the unit in the back. "You take the Strike, I'll get the Freedom."

"W-what?" Hope stuttered, staring after her lover.

"We both know how this shit will play out..." Kira finally muttered, before jumping over the railing.

Kira raced along the walkway, moving to a position directly over the GAT-X10A Freedom Gundam. _'Thank goodness for all those exercises.' _He thought, moving swiftly in the lower gravity. Across from the Gundam's crotch, he saw two ZAFT Reds firing at the woman and man crouched on the mobile suit's torso and leg. One Red fell, at the same time as the man did. Kira saw both soldiers yell out at their comrades, although even his Coordinator hearing couldn't make out the words over the sound of mobile suits, machine guns and infantry assault rifles.

Running, he leaped over the railing, landing gracefully on the Gundam. The woman behind him fell back, startled as the ZAFT Red raised his rifle to fire. As Kira braced himself, the ZAFT Red looked over his weapon before throwing it aside, drawing a long combat knife instead.

Kira smirked slightly as he reached back for the pair of beam sabers he kept in his belt sheaths. As the ZAFT Red drew close, the visor angled so that the light no longer reflected off it, and he saw the soldiers's face._ 'Athrun Zala?'_ In the helmet, Kira saw Athrun mouth his name, before a pair of bullets ricocheted off the Gundam's armor. Athrun threw up his arms, using his pack to jump backwards. Looking, Kira saw his old friend jump onto the forward-most Gundam, briefly glancing at Kira before entering the cockpit. Kira struggled a bit between desire and self-imposed duty, when the woman called out to him.

"Hey, you!" Turning, Kira looked up at the Alliance soldier, one whom he instantly recoginized as none other than Murrue Ramius. She seemed to be injured, holding her hand to her arm. He moved quickly over to her, mentally beating down his desire.

"Here, get in." Obeying, Kira hopped down into the cockpit after her, moving behind the pilot seat. His eyes moved quickly over the controls, memorizing every button, switch, the stick, the throttle, and the screens. He watched as Murrue grabbed the controls, moving them carefully, as though she held grenades in her hands without the pin, but with the arming lever intact. It was obvious that this was not his lover, or at the very least, it was obvious that his lover had not yet merged with this particular past-self. Either that, or she was simply acting to avoid drawing suspicion from those around her.

Outside, the remaining ZAFT soldiers watched as the 18-meter tall mobile suit stood, moving slowly and cautiously. The other one, in the middle had already chased after the one Athrun had taken, sprinting after it like a wolf on the hunt. The Freedom plodded out the hanger door, it's unskilled pilot handling it tenderly. Kira had to reign in his impatience, knowing that he could move the Freedom much faster than this.

They then saw the GAT-X02E Berserker Gundam facing off against a GINN, three GuAIZs and the GAT-X303 Aegis Gundam stolen by Athrun. As they watched, the Aegis fired its thrusters, moving towards the outer hull door. The GINN faced them, drawing a long blade. As the mobile suit charged, the Alliance officer drew the Freedom's arms above its head, crossing them as she pressed a large button. The Gundam flared into color, its gray tones replaced by white, black and gold. The blade clashed with the limbs, sparks flying as the GINN pilot tried to force the blade through them.

Apparently frustrated, the GINN moved back, and started in again with the sword, slicing at the torso. Murrue quickly responded by fired the head-mounted CIWS, but the rounds missed what, by all means, should have been an easy target, the bullets digging into the concrete. _'This Gundam's weapons haven't been calibrated yet?'_ Kira thought disappointedly. The next slice sent the Freedom tumbling back, crashing into a building. As he recovered from the impact, Kira's eyes fell on one of the secondary monitors. It showed Sai, Tolle, Miriallia and Kuzzey running, Tolle pulling Miriallia behind him. Murrue moved the Freedom back up, facing the GINN, which was preparing to stab the Gundam. Murrue moved the mobile suit back a step, far too close to the teenagers for Kira's liking. His conscience, always the dominant part of him, had him gripping the throttle and firing the thrusters, charging the GINN. It fell back, and as its pilot attempted to rise, Kira pushed Murrue aside, seating himself in the chair. Pulling out the keyboard, he began typing in the changes he had long since been planning, restructuring the Operating System to his liking as the brown-haired woman looked over his shoulder.

"How the hell can you pilot this with this OS?" Kira muttered, his hands moving swiftly over the keyboards.

"Don't blame me...we weren't able to finish it..." Murrue trailed off, obviously astonished at the scene unfolding in the cockpit. As he looked over the Operation System, Kira saw more and more tell-tales, affirming his suspicions. _'This is definitely Hope's handiwork...Orb, or at least someone with a lot of power helped the Alliance with this...and they seem to have taken a lot of technology from Celestial Being'_ Once he finished, he reset the keyboard, taking hold of the main controls as the GINN righted itself. The ZAFT unit took a swipe at him, blade whistling towards the Freedom's head. Ducking, Kira moved the Gundam's hand down, and up, in a devestating uppercut that slammed the GINN to its full height. As its pilot shook off the shock, the mobile suit sheathed the sword, instead drawing its machine gun.

As the weapon fired, Kira effortlessly moved the Freedom to the side, before jumping it up with the thrusters and landing next to the GINN. Acting quickly, he drew two of the Freedom's four weapons, a beam pistol for the left hand and a beam saber in a reverse-grip in the right. He shot the GINN through its thigh with the pistol; blasting actuators into melted scrap, and sliced its head off with the glowing energy blade, the blade changine color from pink to white as it slashed through the enemy machine. Kira followed up by slicing the left arm off and shooting the right shoulder, effectively disabling most of the GINN's main weapons. Out of one monitor, Kira saw a green-suited figure jumping out from the GINN's back, and had an instant to figure out what would happen next. Moving the Freedom back, he shielded the torso with its arms, just in time for the GINN's battery to intentionally overload, initiating a self-destruct sequence that caused an explosion equivalent to a car bomb.

As the GINN began to explode, Kira utilized some of his more divine abilities, allowing the Freedom to lock onto the fleeing soldier, and with an electric crackle, the rail gun on the Freedom's left hip suddenly swung up and fired, the hyper-velocity shell vaporizing the cowardly ZAFT pilot. As the explosion faded, the Freedom turned to face the retreating Aegis and ignited its thrusters.

"Athrun Zala!" Kira roared, as the Freedom caught up with the Aegis less than half a second later, bodyslamming the red mobile suit into the colony wall. The amethyst-eyed man grinned madly, flexing his fingers before gripping the Freedom's controls tightly. Then, he started killing.

"You fucking cowards!" Kira snarled as the Freedom's right hand darted into an object attached to its left hip, a long gauntlet-like weapon with fingers tipped by two-meter long claws with beam-edges, although the gauntlet was perfectly capable of slicing through entire GINNs without the beam blades being active. The gauntlet detached, coming up and around as the Freedom moved for the Aegis Gundam. The red Gundam's eyes turned to regard the Freedom for an instant before the claws took its head. Kira chuckled as he kicked the Aegis in the chest, knocking the transformable mobile suit over. Turning slightly, he regarded the GINN on the left, which had raised its rifle at the Gundam. The beam claws flashed to life for a millionth of a second, slicing the weapon into five pieces before deactivating, and faster than anyone could blink, the solid blades scratched across the torso armor, leaving relatively shallow rents, but allowing Kira to see the terrified pilot. A fraction of a second later, the beam claws once more flashed to life as Kira severed the GINN's arms and legs, before then taking its head with a blast from the beam pistol. With the immediate threats dealt with, Kira turned to look at Murrue, who was staring at the main monitor in shock and disbelief.

"W-who are you?" Murrue asked after nearly ten seconds had passed.

Kira had to resist the urge to brutally disarm and disrobe Murrue. Sticking to the overall plan was not only objectively obvious, it was pretty much nesscary. Subjectively, however, Kira was finding it hard to not tackle her to the ground and impregenate her right there, in full view of everyone.

And it certainly didn't help that Hope was grinning at him from the cockpit of Strike, but then the situation got even more complicated.

"Hey! What are you doing with Kira!" The shout came from beyond the Freedom, and looking, Kira could see Tolle, Miriallia and Sai running around the shattered, melted wreckage of the GINNs, each looking rather indignant. Kira felt more than heard as Murrue shift her aim from his back to Tolle's head, and his muscles tensed automatically, readying him to spring back and break her arms. Instead, he forced himself to relax. A second later, he was gratified to hear the Alliance officer start talking instead of shooting. He'd read her right.

"These mobile suits are Earth Alliance property." She stated, somewhat nervously. _'Wrong, they belong to Celestial Being.'_ Kira silently thought. "Because you saw them, I cannot allow you to go freely until validated by an officer overseeing the project." In the corner of his eye, Kira could see Hope grinning slightly

"Excuse me." Kira began. "But could you tell us who the hell you are?" The brown-haired woman paused for a second before answering.

"Lieutenant Murrue Ramius, Earth Alliance, 8th Orbital Fleet." Kira relaxed upon discovering this. This beautiful woman was one of the sensible ones in the Alliance. Murrue stepped back to the Freedom's cockpit, looking around and checking something. "What did you do?"

"I wrote some code to allow for the gaps in the Operating System, and overwrote some of the lines controlling the electroactive polymers for better efficiency." Kira replied.

"I don't even recognize this! How did you do this?" Murrue went on, before stopping herself and just staring in astonishment. "Never mind. I can't pilot it like this, so I guess you'll have to."

_'Score: Celestial Being 1, Earth Alliance 0.'_ Hope thought triumphantly. As Kira climbed into the cockpit, Hope heard a groan from inside the crimson Berserker Gundam, loud enough even for Ramius to hear it. _'Shit.'_ Turning, she saw Asuka descending from the cockpit on the zipline, fire in her eyes. Stopping for a second as he feet touched the ground, Asuka's expression shifted to a smirk that wouldn't have looked out of place on a lion on the savanna that had cornered a mouse. _'Fuck. She's got me and she knows it. Probably just relishing the irony.'_

"Asuka? Are you okay?" The red-haired woman spared a glance towards Hope before replying.

"Yes, Lieutenant, I'm fine." Hope was practically sweating. If Asuka got her killed, Hope would wait in hell until the end of Asuka's natural lifespan, and pounce on the other woman when she arrived. The funny thing was, Asuka would probably laugh at that.

"I guess I should thank you. If you hadn't programmed the Berserker, we probably would have been killed." Hope continued staring, albeit for a different reason. Murrue turned to Hope, suspicious.

"You reprogrammed a Gundam, too?" The marigold-eyed woman asked in shock.

"The three of us attend the same class." Hope answered truthfully, jabbing a thumb over her shoulder at the Strike and Berserker Gundams. That didn't dispel the glare. Behind the Lieutenant, Asuka was motioning in Orb Sign Language, punctuating with unrelated insulting gestures every so often. Murrue threw up her arms in exasperation, a bemused, annoyed look on her face.

"Well, nothing to do about it. I guess you'll pilot the Strike then." There was a little mocking cheer in Hope's head as she bowed.

Kira gently eased the Freedom into a crouch, watching Murrue for signs that he was doing anything wrong. All he saw was her thumbs up as she ran into the pack transporter. Right now, Murrue was having him and Hope recharge their mobile suits, but where Hope had the Strike hooked up to a mobile chemical microreactor, Kira was equipping the Freedom. Apparently, each of the striker packs, which took their name from the fact that they had originally been meant exclusively for the GAT-X105 Strike Gundam, included an extra capacitor in its main unit, and the Juggernaut striker pack had the unique ability to equip a second striker pack, allowing the mobile suit to further enhance its firepower, melee combat abilities or manuverability. Within a minute, Kira watched the icons on the HUD overlay change from white to gunmetal gray, signaling the attachment of each piece of the Juggernaut Equipment Pack. Then, an alert sounded, and the inner portion of the hull door exploded inward. On an auxiliary screen, Kira saw the white and silver GuAIZ emerge from the dust and debris, its monoeye locking onto the Freedom. _'Rau Le Creuset!'_ Kira felt his heart rate jump, and adrenaline instantly flooded his system. Everyone knew the famous ZAFT ace, who fought in the lunar battle, destroying three Nelson-class battleships and their escorts in GINN! It was as perfect an opportunity as Kira could ask for. Murrue waved at him, signaling that the loading was complete.

The Freedom rose, the gunmetal-grey pack releasing the pair of long-barreled weapons at its sides into the Gundam's grip, activating the Gatling gun units mounted on the main unit, and initiating the flow of energy from the secondary capacitor. Kira briefly consulted the armaments screen, selecting the Gatling guns. He would have loved to see what effect the 350mm hyper-impulse beam cannon blasts had on a mobile suit, but in Heliopolis, the collateral damage could be catastrophic. The masive Gatling gun fired, the rounds, while relatively large, would just leave disfiguring scars on the inner hull of the colony if he missed. Kira took careful aim, and fired, the burst of 85mm projectiles going exactly where he wanted. Just to the side of the GuAIZ, coming close enough to look like a rookie miss, but far enough that it had little chance to hit the fast mobile suit. Continuing the barrage of just-missing bullets, Kira reached into his pocket, drawing out a radio earpiece. Pressing a pre-determined sequence of buttons on the earpiece, Kira spoke on the command frequency for Rau Le Creuset's team.

"This is Kira Yamato, pilot of the Freedom Gundam. Rau Le Creuset, can you hear me?" There was a brief pause, a burst of static, before the reply came through.

"This is Rau Le Creuset. What do you want?"

"I would like to request your assistance in an operation."

"Oh, this is rich. You, an Earth Alliance officer, want me to help you?"

"I am an officer of the Orb Intelligence Agency, investigating subversive elements within the higher echelons of the Orb government and military."

"And you would like me to aid in this investigation while you're shooting at me?"

"I do have to maintain my cover."

There was a momentary pause, but finally Rau answered. "Alright then, what do you want?"

"Quite simply, continue operating as if you were attempting to catch this mobile suit, and the experimental carrier."

"There's a carrier?"

"Yes." Kira answered, and at that very moment, an explosion sounded, a column of dust preceding the appearance of an enormous ship, more than a third of a mile long. It was shaped like a long, thin wedge, tapered towards the front, ending in what looked like an enormous gunbarrel. On the sides were wings shaped like elongated right triangles, and on the dorsal surface was a smaller wedge-like structure with a large blocky object on top of it. In the back, six enormous thrusters, shaped vaguely like pods, flared with blue light, pushing the ship forward. On the forward-most part of both the dorsal and ventral surfaces, there were a total of four rounded and tapered rectangular objects. All over the ship, small triangular sections showed the placement of CIWS turrets.

"What is that?" Rau whispered.

"That would be the Archangel, prototype flagship and mobile suit assault carrier." Kira explained. At that moment, an orange and white mobile armor appeared, coming through the hull door. "I'm about to fire one of my main weapons at you, please escape through the hole it makes in the hull. And move quickly, the nano-repair systems are designed to work fast." All he heard was a grunt from the other end of the line, as the GuAIZ maneuvered to avoid not only the intentionally missing Gatling gun rounds, but the CIWS guns from the Archangel, and the linear cannon shots from the Moebius Zero. Leveling the right-hand weapon, Kira took careful aim, feeding his targeting information to Rau Le Creuset's GuAIZ so that the ace would know how to dodge. The hyper impulse beam cannon fired. Rau Le Creuset elegantly danced around the stream of blue-hot plasma, which still blasted within centimeters of the GuAIZ's leg armor, impacting the hull. The high-density alloy resisted for an instant, causing the plasma to spread out, affecting more of the hull. The end result was a gaping hole just big enough for a mobile suit to fly through. Even as the GuAIZ moved towards the exit, a thick silver fluid was already leaking out, the nanomachines suspended in it working to seal the breach. The mobile suit just made it through, the plasma thrusters blasting some of the fluid into the colony as Rau Le Creuset made his escape.


	132. The Battle of Heliopolis

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 132**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

"I told you that I can't pilot the Freedom with all the changes you made." Murrue Ramius protested as Kira Yamato physically carried her into the hanger and up to the Freedom's cockpit hatch.

Without a single word, the amethyst-eyed man opened the Freedom's cockpit hatch and gently set Murrue down in the pilot seat. After a few seconds, Murrue hesitantly set her hands on the control yokes, and as she did so, Kira smiled.

"I-if I pilot the Freedom, you won't be able to protect us." Murrue said after a moment of silence.

"Wrong." Kira grinned, as he snapped his fingers and, right before Murrue's eyes, a mobile suit vaugely resembeling the Freedom Gundam, ablit with a pair of pure white, angel-style wings, appeared in the supposedly empty mobile suit cubicle to Murrue's left. "I'll be piloting this machine." He smiled, motioning to the mobile suit which had seemingly appeared out of thin air. "The CB-X60D Divinity Gundam."

From the outside, the Divinity Gundam looked very intimidating despite its angelic appearence, its white, black and red colors, the gold V-fin, the glinting purple eyes, and the grill-like faceplate, it gave off a commanding aura. With the shoulder, elbow, wrist and knee flanges, the body of the Divinity looked ominous. The highly aerodynamic shield it held in its left hand had a pair of multi-phase beam cannons built into it, the 580mm wide-bore barrel planted directly in the center of the shield's face, with the smaller 320mm multi-phase cannon in the nose of the shield. In the Divinity's right hand was gripped a 57mm beam rifle. Across its back were strapped a pair of massive twin barrel rifles, a large hammer, and a pair of huge swords, one of the blades a shimmering crystalline blue and the other appearing as though it had been carved from flesh.

"Hello? Athrun?" The ZAFT Red in question snapped out of his reverie, snapping his head up to see Miguel's face looking annoyed on the communications screen. "You were listening? I asked what your connection is to this Kira guy."

"Well...I went to the moon after that Blue Cosmos attack on me and my father, remember?" Athrun said, pausing to see Miguel's impatient nod. "I met Kira there. We pretty much became the poster boys for 'Best Friends Forever at first sight'."

"You didn't...date him, did you?" The Aegis Gundam's head slowly turned to face Miguel's GINN. The next second, a momentary pulse from the Aegis's thrusters sent its shield slamming into the chest of the GINN. Before the blow sent the ZAFT mobile suit flying, four insect-like appendages extended from the edges of the shield and wrapped around the GINN, holding it tightly.

"I _dare_ you to say anything so much as insinuating that I'm gay again." Athrun's voice hissed, the cockpit speakers enhancing the menace in his voice. "Then we'll see what happens to a GINN that's blasted by a multi-phase beam cannon at close range." Miguel just nodded. Despite his status and reputation as an ace, Athrun was generally regarded as a prodigy. Also, despite the prideful denials of the ZAFT engineers, the Aegis out-teched the GINN by a good two orders of magnitude.

"Stop!" Rau commanded, his voice echoing over the communication lines. "We're almost to the designated point. Get ready!" The appendages slowly withdrew back into their storage spaces on the edges of the shield. The Aegis Gundam's glare held the GINN captive for a moment before Athrun maneuvered the Gundam back the somewhat weaker hull section where Rau Le Creuset and his GuAIZ escaped.

Now, less than five minutes later, Kira was once again facing Miguel Aiman, the Magic Bullet of Dusk, in his borrowed GINN.

"So...I guess you think you're hot shit in that mobile suit, huh?" Miguel snarled at the pilot of the Divinity Gundam.

"Well, it's rather different from those shitty ZAFT mobile suits." Kira began, only for the conversation to cease as Miguel charged, machine gun firing as he moved to slam the Divinity Gundam with his shield. The angelic machine's microthrusters fired, moving the Divinity ever so slightly, causing the burst to miss. When the GINN's shield moved, the Divinity's right hand, still clutching the grip of the sword, moved. The eight-meter blade emerged from its sheath, beam edge flaring into existence as it sliced down, carving through shield and limb. Before Miguel could move anymore, both the Divinity's main thrusters and the microthrusters fired, flipping the angelic Gundam over the GINN. A 180-degree spin sliced the sword through the GINN's midsection, parting legs from torso. The cockpit of the GINN fell, only its head and right arm still attached. Before it fell too far though, the Aegis Gundam's shield slammed into it, appendages gripping the remains of the mobile suit. The two Gundams looked at each other.

"Athrun."

"Kira." The Divinity moved, pointing the tip of its sword at the Aegis, which holstered the beam rifle on its thigh, drawing the beam naginata. Despite these threatening actions, the two pilots had a rather friendly conversation.

"So, how have you been?" Athrun asked.

"I've been okay." Kira answered. "You'll never guess though."

"What?"

"Turns out, I'm the son of the Chief Representative of the Orb Union."

"WHAT!" At this point, the fight had begun, both skillfully attacking, and parrying the others attacks, at least, to the view of any unskilled observers.

"Yep." Kira nodded. "His daughter's my twin sister."

"I always suspected that." Athrun mused. "You two do look alot alike."

"I still have every intention of marrying her." Kira informed his friend.

To the side, the remaining GuAIZ dodged the Mobious Zero's fire, although the GuAIZ still ended up having its legs holed due to the rail gun shots from the Archangel. On the bridge, Natarle grew impatient.

"Aim the Gottfried!" Despite their doubts, the crew followed her command, quickly aiming the port-side Gottfried beam cannon. "Fire!" A green energy beam lanced out from the twin barrels, speeding through the upper right section of the GINN, and into the center structure of Heliopolis. The effect was instantaneous, and obvious.

The structure melted, and the colony shuddered, the damage caused by fights, both inside and outside the colony, only speeding up the inevitable. The centrifugal force ripped Heliopolis to shreds, dirt, concrete, and metal flying away. The rushing winds of the escaping atmosphere pulled the mobile suits along, scattering them all over. It was all over within a matter of minutes.

The Divinity floated in the debris field. In the cockpit, Kira's lips thinned, becoming an emotionless line as the pupils of his eyes dilated into seeming non-existence, and the irises almost completely engulfing them. The irises were also faceted, like a diamond, and shifted through countless colors, the whole spectrum of light flashing through Kira's eyes as blood steadily flowed from them.

Kira Yamato shifted uncomfortably, trying to find a distribution of weight that didn't hurt his rear. He wished that Rau Le Creuset could've waited more than ten minutes before staging another fake attack. _'Whoops! I really should stop thinking.'_ The Divinity had barely dodged a shimmering green energy beam from the Duel Gundam, piloted by a vengeful Yzak Joule.

"Fucking stand still!" The silver-haired Coordinator snarled, firing a barrage of missiles. Kira yawned, making sure it was loud enough to be transmitted by the earpiece, and fired the CIWS beam guns in short bursts, destroying the missiles before they so much as inched towards him. The alter then had the Divinity detach its left claw, before grabbing the beam rifle holstered on its back waist and snapping off a trio of shots past the Duel's cameras. The beams streaked by, temporarily blinding the Gundam and reminding Yzak Joule just who he was fighting. Grinning, Kira pushed the Divinity into a somersault, feeding just enough power into the thrusters to move the angelic Gundam slightly forward as it began the second revolution. As a result, the Divinity's feet kicked straight into the Duel's crotch, throwing the blue mobile suit upwards. As well as sparking a series of cursing as Yzak got the insult. Which caused Kira to laugh mockingly. Which started off another round of swearing, in a feedback loop. The shield came up, shotgun firing three times, a spread of flechettes blazing outwards. Kira ignored them, instead dodging the follow-up barrage of beams and a grenade. He wasn't surprised when the Duel threw away its rifle, whipping out the beam saber and slicing away like a butcher. The reaction to this was simple, the Divinity's thrusters flaring bright as Kira boosted the mobile suit above the other, CIWS firing insultingly at the Duel's face. Roaring, Yzak sliced the sword up, attempting to at least cut off one of the legs or something to that extent. The Divinity simply backed away, its faceplate opening to reveal a mouth filled with pure white teeth, finally the mouth opened wide, clearing the firing arc of the ion cannon hidden in the back of the machine's mouth.

"IM CHARGIN MAH LAYZER!" Kira screamed, cackling insanely.

"Actually, it's an ion beam weapon." Hope said, from the cockpit of the Strike. "Instead of firing a concentrated beam of photons, it fires a compressed beam of plasma at the speed of light, and while they may seem simi-"

"Oh, shut up!" Kira snapped. The particulars of the cannon were of no real concern to him, all he really cared about was the destruction it caused. Which was rather small, the energy beam flashing past the Duel's torso to hit a small and lonely meteroid. Kira scowled slightly, even as the green orb in the center of the Divinity's chest lit up, and an instant later, the angelic machine's temporal inversion cannon fired, forcing the Duel Gundam out of the timeline, erasing it from existence.


	133. With Good Intentions

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 133**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

"What is that?" Miriallia asked, pointing at the large cylindrical structure practically the size of Artemis itself.

"That is the Paimon, one of only a dozen or so Endeavor-class ships that were deployed at the start of the war." Murrue whispered, eyes shrouded. Noticing her discomfort, Miriallia turned to one of the other crewman.

"The Paimon was one of the Endeavors assigned to the Lunar Defense Fleet." He explained. "It was taken out by Rau Le Creuset."

"The same guy who's chasing us?" Miriallia asked.

"Yep. He did the craziest thing: He flew _into_ the Paimon's main gun, a positron cannon like the two we've got, and shot the capacitors. The explosion caused the nuclear reactor to rupture, and chain-react. He took out a sixth of the fleet with that one shot." The crewman peered out the view, studying the Paimon's remains. "I think the Eurasians towed the wreck out here, and ripped out the nuclear reactor. Looks like they put a lot of solar panels on it, and ripped out some of the secondary guns, too."

Miriallia stared at the ominous hulk, shuddering as she imagined it at its prime. An enormous ship, mobile armors flooding from its docks as enormous linear cannons and beam cannons fired, with the smaller flashes of CIWS guns interspersed, as the massive positron cannon fired a single devastating shot. Finally, she asked. "Why do that? Why not repair it, and use it in the war?"

"The Neutron Jammers. The Endeavors were originally powered by large-scale, high-power nuclear fission reactors. When the Jammers went into effect, their reactors shut down, and the Endeavors became little more than enormous metal asteroids." Miriallia shuddered again, as the Archangel passed the Paimon's remains, entering the port.

"You think you can control yourself?" Hope Yamato asked, watching her friend and lover closely.

"Yes, Hope, I can handle myself." Kira Yamato replied tersely. "I haven't killed anyone on the Archangel, have I?"

"Barely." Hope answered. "I saw you with one of your beam sabers out, although not ignited, but eying Natarle." Kira's only reply was to stare balefully at Hope.

"Kira, Hope, Murrue wants you two to come along." Miriallia's voice called out, causing both of the pilots to glance up before leaving.

A five-minute jog later, Kira and Hope met Murrue, Natarle, and Mu at the starboard aft airlock.

"What's the matter?" Kira asked Murrue, the captain looking somewhat concerned.

"I don't know. They specifically asked for the pilots of the Freedom and the Strike." She answered, somewhat perturbed as they saw the guards and officials walking across the catwalk. The airlock hissed, opening as the five crewmembers stepped out. They did not expect the guards to raise their weapons, which Hope noted to be the new OMNI Assault Carbine, and aim them at the Archangel crew.

"What is the meaning of this?" Natarle blustered, shocked.

"Murrue Ramius, Natarle Badgiruel, and Mu La Flaga. You and your crew are under arrest for aiding a national criminal." One of the officials said, stepping up from behind the guards. "And you, Kira Yamato, the criminal, are under arrest for the murder of Colonel Joseph Abaddon and his retinue." Kira simply yawned. "I am Vice Admiral Edward Abaddon."

Kira stared straight ahead as he stood in the brig deep within the bowels of Atremis, studying the three guards from head-to-toe for the hundredth time, noting every piece of body armor, their weapons, their sidearm, the placement of every spare clip, everything on their person. As far as he knew, the rest of the Archangel's crew had been confined on the ship, guarded by at least a platoon of Abaddon's personal guards. He glanced over at Hope, who nodded, her eyes closed to mere slits. Kira acted quickly, face falling into an emotionless mask and pupils dilating, he snapped the handcuffs they'd restrained him with, drawing both of his beam sabers, still hidden within their sheaths. He ignited the weapons, the glowing white energy blades flaring to life as he sliced at the prison bars. The twin beam sabers were custom-made, the handles were made mostly out of titanium and wrapped with leather. The energy blades themselves were pure white, and as with all beam blades, were capable of cutting through all infantry-grade armor and most known materials as well.

Two quick slices opened a large hole in the bars, and before the guard could react, Kira had shortened the blade in his left hand and sliced through both of the guard's lungs, before moving around and slitting his throat. Two steps brought the Coordinator to the second guard, slicing through the barrel of his assault rifle with the shimmering blade in his left hand, Kira then utilized the blade in his right hand and cut deep enough into the man's neck to sever his spinal cord. Moving quickly, Kira sliced the locks of each cell, releasing the astonished Murrue, Natarle and Mu, before then cutting off their cuffs. Hope walked to the first guard, stripping him of his armor and weapons, tossing the handgun to Kira. Behind them, the three officers stared, stunned.

"I'd suggest you wait to ask questions until we get back to the ship." Kira suggested coldly, throwing a trio of handguns and spare clips to Murrue, Natarle and Mu. The officers did as suggested, and followed the two Coordinators, Kira in front and Hope following.

The situation was uncomfortable. A few days had passed since the Archangel and its crew had escaped from Artemis, and now, Kira was sitting in a chair, in the Captain's Quarters, with the back against the far wall. Before him was arrayed most of the bridge crew, as well as most of his friends from Heliopolis. A slight concern was the array of weaponry aimed at various parts of his anatomy.

"Alright." Kira started. "What's this about?"

"You've been stalling since we left Artemis." Murrue replied. "We want answers."

"Alright, what?" Kira asked.

"First, are you really the Killer Child, from that footage that Blue Cosmos spread around?" Murrue asked.

"Yes." Kira responded.

"Why are you here?" Murrue asked.

"Reclamation and protection of Orb Union property, including, but not limited to, this ship, and the Gundams." Kira answered. "I've been operating with permission from Lord Uzumi Nara Athha." At this, the Orb natives started sweating.

"What?" Murrue asked.

"Orb resources, technology and personnel were used in their construction inside Orb territory, without permission from Chief Representative Athha. Thus, it was unanimously decided that we should repossess these items." By this point Kira was feeling extremely uncomfortable, and while he'd told the truth so far, he was leaving some rather important, if personal, bits out. By then, most of the Orb natives had lowered their weapons, all of them looking quite shocked. Kira really couldn't blame them. It wasn't every day you find out your friend of one year was actually a personal agent of the Chief Representative of Orb. Well, at least he wouldn't have to drop the other bombshell.

Then Hope walked in. The female Coordinator looked around, then at Kira.

"So, they got you to tell them about how Lord Uzumi sent us to get the stuff." Kira's face met his palm as Sai, Tolle, and Miriallia stared at him. Kuzzey fainted.

"Hope!" Kira growled.

"Have you also told them how you are married to Orb Princess Cagalli Yula Athha, idol singer Lacus Clyne, ZAFT ace mobile suit pilot Shiho Hahnenfuss, as well as Captain Murrue Ramius and myself?" The amethyst-eyed woman asked, grinning. "Not to mention a few other beautiful women from various realities."

"Hope Yamato!" Kira yelled. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

However, before Hope could answer, Murrue, having now realized the futility of trying to hide the truth, put her hands on Kira's shoulder and pulled him into a deep and passionate kiss.


	134. Beta Aegis Gundam

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 134**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

Athrun quickly strapped himself into the Aegis, even as Kira and Hope raced towards their own Gundams. Rau was already stepping up to the catapult, being more comfortable in the somewhat familiar GuAIZ. The ZAFT pilots finished their start-up procedures just as the Orb pilots began theirs, moving to the catapults on either deck. First to launch was the GuAIZ and the Aegis, both firing thrusters as soon as they cleared the catapults. Next were the Divinity piloted by Kira, the Justice piloted by Lexi, followed by the IWSP Strike piloted by Hope, the Freedom piloted by Murrue and the Wing Zero piloted by Shiho. The Gundams and GuAIZ formed up, with the Aegis holding up the rear and the GuAIZ leading.

"Wait, why is Athrun lagging behind?" Shiho asked.

"While we were at Aprilius One, the engineers at Maius had a look at the Aegis, and made some modifications." Rau answered.

"THEY DID WHAT!" Asuka veritably screamed over the communications line. Rau ignored the steaming engineer.

"Athrun, you might as well do it." The next second saw a change sweep over the Aegis. The shoulder flanges began to rotate out, folding out as well until they were practically as long as each of the Aegis's limbs. Sections of armor flipped out on hinges, revealing telescoping antennae. The V-fin's arms extended as well, becoming about twice as long, with sections every fifty centimeters sliding out at ninety-degree angles. The shield was stored on the Gundam's back, its multi-phase cannon concealed by shifting armor plates.

"Conversion to Beta Aegis complete." Athrun said, while Asuka screamed over the communications line.

"I WAS SUPPOSED TO FINISH THAT!"

"Lay off Asuka, you're just annoyed that someone else tampered with your precious mobile suits." Hope said, before cutting the communications line and shifting a bit in her seat, making absolutely sure to be in the most comfortable position possible. The Strike's movements shifted slightly, going from a standard mobile suit movement style, to something resembling how a hunting cat moved, lithe and predatory. Of the six others, only Lexi, Kira and Rau noticed the change.

_'I wonder...'_ Rau thought, before filing the curiosity away in the back of his mind. The mobile armors had noticed them.

The mobile armors assigned to the battle group had never expected to find themselves faced with the stolen prototypes, nor had they expected to find said prototypes accompanied by a new ZAFT unit.

Moving quickly, with anti-mobile suit tactics developed over years of combat, they split up, the thirty or so Moebius armors pairing up. Immediately, when they came within a mile of the approaching suits, about a third of them began having problems with their engines, and about half of those reported difficulties controlling the mobile armors. Two of those exploded for no obvious reason. The rest didn't live long enough to wonder what happened.

The Divinity's barrage eliminated ten of the mobile armors immediately, with a few bursts from the Justice's beam rifle ripping through three more. The Wing Zero darted among a group of five too close to each other, not even dodging the badly missing shots before destroying them with short bursts of yellow energy blasts from its twin buster rifle. The Strike and Freedom shredded seven, before moving for the Agamemnon hanging at the back of the ship formation. The GuAIZ accounted for the rest, destroying two with rounds from its assault rifle, and a third one with the beam saber in its shield. The scattered remnants were cleared up with bursts from the GuAIZ's hip-mounted rail guns, as Rau moved his mobile suit towards the forward most Drake-class. Athrun began slowly moving the Beta Aegis, until he was within a mile of the rearmost Drake.

The crews of the ships were fucking scared of the seven mobile suits. The two forward Nelsons and the Drakes opened up with everything they had, machine guns, beam guns, missiles, everything began firing. At each other.

The devastation was obvious, as gaping holes opened up in their hulls. A few of the searing energy beams hit chemical reactors, ammunition bays or mobile armor munitions of two Drakes, causing internal explosions that shredded the two vessels.

On the Agamemnon's bridge, Captain Alex Dynam, who was currently in command of the battle group, raged. "What the hell are you doing!" He roared over the open communications line. The other captains couldn't explain it, their targeting systems were classifying the other ships in their own fleet as targets. Dynam felt a chill.

_'Wasn't the Aegis equipped with an EWACS system?'_ Alex thought _'But it shouldn't be able to do that! Unless...'_

"You!" He barked, pointing at the sensors officer. "Get me images of the Aegis, camera and radar!" The sweating officer complied quickly, remembering the captain's quick temper. The images he pulled up were very revealing. The array of antennae all over the red Gundam's body in the camera image caused it to look like a knight in spiked armor. The radar images showed enormous radio waves emanating from the Gundam, completely overpowering the Nelson's own radio signals and somewhat overlapping the Agamemnon's own.

_'Fuck me...they got the Beta Aegis up and running!' _The officer considered his options for a short moment. Either he could start up his weapons, and possibly fall victim to the Beta Aegis Gundam's combination of automatic hacking and advanced electronic countermeasures, or try and flee and get shredded by the other Gundams. Even as he watched, they were carving their way through the remnants of the Drakes. The Justice stopped briefly in front of the bridge of a Drake straight in the middle of the formation, took aim with its rifle, and fired a grenade into the bridge.

Hope. Was. Bored. It had been ease itself to slaughter those Alliance mobile armors, and with the Beta Aegis Gundam's electronic warfare, she'd actually fallen asleep for a few seconds while attacking the ships. Currently, she was having the Strike slice through the Nelson, ripping through the hull towards the reactor. She ignored the numerous floating corpses, most with various parts missing, or floating a good distance away from them.

Behind her, the Divinity quickly dealt with the last Nelson, swerving around the beams it fired as mobile suit's beam machine guns intercepted the missiles. The micro-thrusters maneuvered the Divinity close to one of the beam turrets, allowing Kira to free the massive quantum crystal anti-ship sword from his machine's right wing and slice the turret in two before the angelic machine moved away from the ship, circling around it towards the bridge. Kira staunched the spasm of conscience as he saw the faces of those on the bridge of the ship, the aerodynamic shield leading to smash into the structure. The anti-ship sword, which Kira had stabbed into the ship after slicing the turret, was withdrawn from the gaping slash in the ship's side. Kira launched the Divinity towards the last ship, the Agamemnon, joining the circle of mobile suits that surrounded it.

A second later, a pod jettisoned from the ship, flying out into space before smacking straight into the Strike's right hand, the Gundam holding the pod up before taking it back to the Archangel at a nod from the Divinity. This slight distraction allowed the Agamemnon to swivel its beam cannons about, firing at the Silverwind.

The ZAFT pilot's panicked cries were heard as a pair of green energy beams blasted through the civilian shuttle known as Silverwind, which had unintentionally stumbled onto the battlefield. The twin beam blasts leaving the shuttle smoking for a few seconds before it finally exploded. Athrun, however, noticed something speeding from the mangled wreckage of the civilian shuttle, and moving quickly, he fired the Beta Aegis Gundam's thrusters, grabbing the single object that had been ejected from the Silverwind before it exploded.

Before anyone could do anything else, the cannons shifted slightly, aiming at the Divinity this time. Kira simply smirked as the green energy beams bounced harmlessly off his machine's armor. Acting quicker than ever, Kira poured power into the thrusters, manipulating the smaller micro-thrusters so that he landed feet first behind the cannons, right in front of the bridge. The impact caused the hull to buckle around the Divinity's feet, slightly holding the Gundam there as Kira used the leverage to swing the stan anti-ship sword 360-degrees, behind the Divinity, over its head, and down through the bridge. Before moving any more, Kira thrust the sword as far as possible down through the hull, before activating the micro-thrusters and zooming the Divinity backwards. The cut belched air, items, and bodies, all freezing in the cold void of space. All the pilots, except for Hope, gasped at how quickly Kira gutted the carrier. After a second, the Divinity shrugged and made a small gesture with its left hand. The other six pilots barely had time to blink in shock as the dropped anti-ship sword came spinning back towards its owner's hand. The Divinity snagged its sword out of the blackness and sheathed it, before then leading them back to the Archangel.

Just before the seven mobile suits reached the ship, a flurry of green beam blasts seared past them. "All of you, get to the Archangel." Kira scowled, zooming his cameras in on the approaching form of the Alliance-built GAT-X165 Providence Gundam. "I'll deal with this idiot."


	135. The Side of Righteousness

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 135**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

"I must commend you, Kira Yamato, for what you've done to the world." Morgan Chevalier cackled as his humming GAT-X165 Providence Gundam, its armor clad in white, blue and red, mimicing the color scheme of the GAT-X105 Strike Gundam, soared into battle. "Side of righteousness, indeed!"

In the CB-X60D Divinity Gundam, beam sword blazing with a pure white light, Kira tensed as the Providence launched its DRAGOON units and the remote weapons wove a web of green beams. He threw the Divinity through the nearest opening and swung up his anti-ship sword, just in time to avoid a beam saber blow from the Providence. It leveled off the beam rifle in its left hand; the Divinity darted aside as it fired and charged again, falling into a spark-spewing swordfight with the Alliance machine.

"I'll confess some curiosity, though, as to which side you're fighting for." Morgan went on, sparks dancing around the two mobile suits. The Providence's eyes flashed and the mobile suit went on the offensive, with a volley of saber blows barely parried and a wave of gunbarrel fire barely dodged by the Divinity. "So let's make it clear, right now, once and for all!" The Providence charged, saber blazing. "Whose side are you on, Kira Yamato?"

Kira flung the Divinity backward, dodging Morgan's final blow, and then slammed his Gundam forward again and pummeled the Providence's beam shield with his own sword. "I'm against the Alliance and ZAFT!" He shot back. "Both sides massacre innocent people!"

"Some might call that retaliation, kid!" Morgan laughed, and with a blast of sparks the Providence blocked another sword blow with its saber. "After all, even Celestial Being has been killing people all over the planet and in space, ever since this war started. Ever wonder how many of them were civilians? How much blood is on Celestial Being's hands?"

Memories rippled through Kira's mind, memories of Junius Seven, memories of the GENESIS gamma-ray laser, memories of the GRMNY-X01 Retribution Gundam constructed by Nazi Germany, memories of reducing the entire planet to a radioactive ball of molten lava, memories of the attack on the Copernicus Lunar City, memories of the siege in Seattle. "I've been killing them too." The amethyst-eyed man sadistically grinned.

The Providence surged forward. "So I've heard!" Morgan roared with a grin. "Yes, we all know, you butchered a ZAFT remnant detachment that turned on the Minerva! One might begin to question your loyalties, little man! So I ask again, whose side are you on?"

The Providence Gundam's DRAGOON units darted across the inky sky and showered the Divinity with pulsing beam fire. Kira's eyes darted back and forth between them, two of the remote weapons suddenly ignited beam blades along their leading edges and charged in close. The Divinity batted them aside with its beam sword; an instant later the Providence was there with an upraised saber, and it slammed the blade down onto the Divinity's sword.

"This is a much better fight, I must say, much fairer." Morgan chuckled as the sparks crackled around the two mobile suits.

The Divinity flung the Providence back with a forceful swing of its sword and then rocketed upward to dodge a wave of DRAGOON fire. The Providence lunged up after the angelic Gundam; a pair of beam cannons flipped up from its back and opened fire, and the Divinity backed away behind its beam shield.

"But you don't seem to be taking me seriously!" Morgan continued, and the Providence intensified its fire. "I wonder why?" The Providence snaked its way through its own beam blasts. "Is there someone better for you to fight?"

Kira glanced to the right, long enough to find those approaching human presences, and then she flung the Divinity to the side, letting Morgan's finishing saber stab pass through a cloud of afterimages. The Divinity backpedaled as a wave of beam fire filled the space around it.

"You!" Kira grunted; the RX-93 Nu Gundam was suddenly there to pummel the Divinity with a blast from the hyper bazooka in its right hand, then with a flash of exhaust, the Nu Gundam's white fin funnels filled the sky with more blazing energy beams; Kira rocketed up over the blasts. Kira glanced over his shoulder and dove to the side as the Nu Gundam lunged at him from behind with a scissoring slash from its beam sabers, only to encounter the angelic machine's glowing beam shields. The two mobile suits darted apart again, just as the Divinity unleashed all 36 of its DRAGOON units, each of the remote weapons leaving an army of afterimages in their wake as they quickly swarmed around the Nu Gundam.

At the edge of the battlefield, Morgan sniffed contemptuously as he recalled his own DRAGOONs. "Nice of you to let me know ahead of time."

"This one is our target, Captain Chevalier." The voice of Earth Alliance Lieutenant Natarle Badgiruel's voice warned through the communications line. "Two mobile suits are inbound. We will handle the Divinity."

"Will you now?" Morgan asked, arching an eyebrow.

As if to emphasize her point, the Nu Gundam brought a beam saber crashing down onto the Divinity's beam sword.

"It's my specialty." Natarle answered.

Morgan snorted in disgust and turned his Providence Gundam towards the approaching units, both of which he recognized as prototype Alliance units; the GAT-X10A Freedom Gundam and the GAT-X105 IWSP Strike Gundam.

"You're not going anywhere!" Kira snarled as eight of his DRAGOON units quickly surrounded the Providence and ignited a glowing cube-shaped beam shield, trapping the Alliance mobile suit. As the eight remote weapons caputred the Providence, the Nu Gundam had rushed in and severed the Divinity's head, right wing and right arm.

"Give up." Natarle's confident voice filled the Divinity's cockpit. "I'd rather capture your machine, but I will destroy it if I have to."

"You can not kill a god." Kira's emotionless voice laughed, even as the Divinity Gundam's head regenerated with a nearly blindingly bright orange flash of light. Unlike before, however, the head of the angelic mobile suit now had brightly glowing, blood-red eyes and a large mouth filled with pure white teeth.

Suddenly, everyone was nearly blinded by a burst of white light. When the light faded, Kira found himself in an all too familiar fortress city, with alarms blaring.

"A special state of emergency has been declared for Tokyo-3. All civilians, must evacuate to their designated shelters immediately." The recorded voice of a woman called out, as the alarms continued to sound. Kira looked around, noticing that he appeared to be alone.

"So, I'll need to destroy all three Evangelion Units on my own, huh?" He rhetorically asked himself, even as a pair of large rails suddenly shot out of the ground. An instant later, a huge hole opened in the ground and Evangelion Unit 01 rumbled to the surface. Two more pairs of rails shot from the ground less than two seconds later, and Evangelion Unit 00 and Evangelion Unit 02 stepped from their respective emergence points. Asuka carried a spear. She was nearest the Divinity Gundam. Kira sighed slightly as he freed Soul Calibur from his machine's back, wielding the massive crystalline blade in his left hand.

Evangelion Unit 02 lunged, grabbing the crystalline blade and wrenching the Divinity Gundam to the ground by it's own weapon. Kira rolled, using his own leverage on the blade to pull and trip the Eva over his fallen body, and regain control of his weapon. The crimson Evangelion Unit crashed to the ground. Asuka's head slammed against the controls as it fell, stunning her. Blood floated away from a cut on her forehead, mixing with the LCL. Kira brought his weapon back for another swing, ready to impale Evangelion Unit 02 on the weapon. As he brought it down, the crimson Evangelion rolled out of the way, and kicked the Divinity's legs out from under him. Dizzily, Evangelion Unit 02 righted itself, and half leapt, half fell on top of the other angelic mobile suit, pinning it, one hand on each shoulder. She brought her right fist back to cave in it's face. Kira smiled, almost sadistically.

_'Idiot.'_ Kira thought to himself. He raised his now free right fist so that it was level with the crimson Eva's face. The shield on his right arm suddenly split down the middle, a pure white beam blade igniting as the thrusters on the back of the shield began to activate. Asuka's eyes widened, and her face slackened as she realized what was about to happen.

"Eat this!" Kira screamed.

The shield bored through Unit 02's skull. Asuka's scream rang through Central Dogma as the crimson Eva collapsed on top of the Divinity. The flying shield flew through a wide arc, then returned to it's master. The Divinity pushed the Eva's decapitated form off from itself, hefting it's crystalline blade as it stood.

Suddenly, dozens of memories resurfaced in Kira's mind. "No! I won't let this shit happen again!" His sentence trailed off in a battle cry, one which the Divinity Gundam echoed, the bellow reverberating throughout Tokyo-3.

Eva Unit 00 and Eva Unit 01 held their ground, although Shinji suddenly felt that running like hell was a very good idea, especially since the angelic machine was now sheathing the massive crystalline sword behind its back. The angelic mobile suit then broke into a run, sprinting directly towards Evangelion Unit 00. Rei screamed and raised her machine gun. The Divinity grabbed the blue Evangelion Unit by the wrists, then, with it's other hand, grabbed the gun by the barrel and, with a flick of it's wrist, seperated the barrel from the grip as though the gun were made of plastic. Rei's eyes widened in terror. The Divinity released Unit 00's wrists, then each mighty hand grabbed one of the blue Eva's shoulders. The angelic machine roared again, then it ripped Unit 00's's arms clean from their sockets, throwing each of the severed limbs away, then moved on to grab the blue Eva by the neck, crushing it. Finally, the angel-winged mobile suit slammed the ruined Evangelion Unit to the ground and began to rip away the armor plating, strewing flesh, blood, organs and mechanical components all about.

Most satisfying to Akira Yamato, perhaps, was the massive piece of wreckage that suddenly slammed sidelong into the Providence Gundam and sent it sailing out of the fight, its DRAGOONs going with it. Akira let his instincts take over as he quickly guided his custom-built Destiny Gundam, dubbed the GN-X425 Fortune Gundam, through the flying debris and enemy fire.

"Akira, we're starting reentry procedures!" Lexi's voice cut in. "Find Rau and both of you get back here!"

"Rau?" Akira echoed from the cockpit of the Fortune Gundam, taking the opportunity to quickly scan the battlefield and pinpoint the telltale pressure of Rau Le Creuset. "Wait, what's going on?"

Rau's masked face appeared on the auxiliary monitor. "Ah, Akira. I could use a hand here."

"Wait, where?" He fell silent long enough to dodge another attack from one of the Alliance mobile suits, and then another wave of wreckage that carried one of them away. "Is that, oh no, what happened?"

"Enemy fire is what happened." Rau answered, his image on the screen flickering. "The Legend can survive reentry on its own, but my maneuvering system is disabled."

Akira felt his blood run hot as he evaded another wave of attacks and fixed Rau's location in his mind. "I'll be there, hold on!"

With a blinding flash of light and a wave of afterimages, the Fortune's Trans-Am system came to life as the Gundam gave a few flaps of its wings and rocketed its way through the wreckage, leaving the Alliance mobile suits far behind. Akira's eyes darted back and forth as he scanned among the wreckage, the edges of which were starting to glow red.

"There!" He cried, and then the Fortune rattled as Akira lunged down, seized the Legend with its right hand, and deployed the beam shield with its left. "Okay, let's go!"

"Too late." Rau interrupted. "Watch the altitude. We will have to reenter on our own."

Akira merely nodded as he reached back into his memory, groping after the reentry procedures, performing the actions as he recited them aloud. "Activating beam shields, redirecting power to the cooling systems, shutting down the beam wings, igniting GN field."

"I have done this before as well." Rau added. "We will survive."

"Excalibur." Akira said into the communications line. "We're reentering separately. We'll, uh, meet you down below."

The ocean breeze lilted over the deck of the Alliance submarine supercarrier Aristotle and swirled around the man on the conning tower. These nights on the Pacific Ocean, only a few hundred miles off the east coast of Japan, weren't nearly as cold as Antarctica. Nothing was as cold as Antarctica.

Shinji Ikari stood on the conning tower of the submarine and wrapped his blue service coat over his white Earth Alliance uniform. He pushed back his white peaked cap and looked up to the sky, at the huge red streak amid the stars.

An officer with a bushy black beard climbed out of the open hatch and came to a stop by his side. "So that's the Excalibur, huh?"

Shinji nodded. "They're on atmospheric reentry. Projections put them in our neck of the woods." He glanced over at the other man. "Is everything ready, Camwell?"

Camwell, executive officer of the ship, nodded. "Hikari has her team ready to go at a moment's notice. And we've got various nearby naval forces on call too, if we want or, god forbid, need reinforcements." He looked up towards the large red streak in the sky and smirked. "Fresh out of the shipyard at Pearl Harbor and we're up against the Excalibur. Who'd have thought?"

Frowning, Shinji fixed his gaze on the approaching warship and pondered.


	136. Clashing Timelines

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 136**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

"Kira's more skilled than you...you yourself have admitted this in the past, and that's when he wasn't fully serious about things, unlike now. His Gundam is technologically more advanced than both of ours, admittedly not by very much, but by enough to matter. As both a Newtype and an Ultimate Coordinator, he is stronger than both of us, perhaps even combined. And he has access to a level of Seed boosting that is far and above superior to our own. Oh yes, and, in the past, you have _never_ beaten him despite several attempts. In fact, once he had a bit of time to adjust to flying a Gundam in combat, he routinely kicked your sweet little ass every time you encountered him, sometimes with truly embarrassing ease! Now you know I believe in you pretty much without conditions, Hope, but I can't help but feel your confidence today is unjustified, can you see where I'm coming from here?" Mayu Asuka was plainly struggling to keep her tone level and reasonable as she sat on the bridge of the Minerva, and not succeeding particularly well.

"Well, you're not wrong about any of that." Hope admitted from the cockpit of her Destiny Gundam, though she did not waver in her course for the Divinity, which was currently engaged with the bulk of the Orb defensive forces that were trying to dig in throughout the capital city. "But it doesn't change the fact that you and I are two the few people who realistically stand a chance against him, any chance at all. I didn't send Athrun away because I was worried about his ability to attack Kira, not really. I sent him away because we both know he's not at top form even if his head was in the game, and if we're going to go after Kira, I can't afford to be looking out for anyone else but us. Because, goddamn it, he IS my friend after all, and besides, it's not like we're really entirely helpless against him. We do have one or two strategies in reserve for this kind of situation, don't we?"

"You want to use _that_ plan? Hope, when I suggested that, I was both drunk and pissed off, I didn't mean it seriously!'

"Regardless, it was a good idea and it might very well be our best and only shot at beating him now. That's assuming you can actually pull it off." Hope challenged her, knowing that she wasn't the sort to back down from a challenge, the same way he was.

Hope activated her Seed Mode, knowing that if this battle wasn't over with in the first few exchanges between them, then it wouldn't be her who was victorious, so there was no reason to hold anything back. Kira was, damn him, just too fucking good at Gundam combat, too creative with his DRAGOON units, too experienced even, for any strategy involving trying to wear him down to work, at least not without massive casualties on the other side. And he was also one of the few people that seemed to become stronger and more effective with increasing numbers of enemies arrayed against him, especially if they were heavy on beam weaponry. So if you wanted to beat him, basically you had to get up close and personal as fast as possible, never let up for an instant and don't play fair. If the battle lasted more than a minute or so, you were going to get out maneuvered, trapped or just plain blown away, Kira was just that good, end of story.

So when she fired the twin buster rifle, she wasn't so much trying to hit Kira as she was trying to tie up his DRAGOON units so that the Divinity could not shift rapidly away from its current position without leaving behind its most adaptable offense and defense in the process. The DRAGOON units, and their nearly infinitely complex ability to combine into stronger and stronger barriers or act as refracting or focusing mirrors for Kira's own attacks and to turn the attacks of others against them, were not only one of the greatest strengths of the Divinity, but it was also one of its primary weaknesses. While the DRAGOONs were very maneuverable and quite quick across short distances, certainly to shift across several tens of meters in an eyeblink, they could not keep up with the Divinity Gundam itself, should it have to maneuver away at cruising speed, and the DRAGOON's could only operate for so long detached from their charging stations on the Divinity's wings before they ran out of power and became inert, the same as any other DRAGOON system. Normally, Kira had a rotation of DRAGOONs in active use and then in recharging set up during combat, but against something like the twin buster rifle, he needed to use all 36 of his DRAGOONs interlinked in order to stand any chance of deflecting the radiation beam.

And that meant that Kira had to stay in the area, within about a hundred meters, for at least another few seconds in order to begin his recharge rotation once again, unless he wanted to basically discard his DRAGOONs. So, even as Hope fired her biggest gun and then discarded the rifle off to the side, there being no time to reholster it and not wanting to give Kira a chance on figuring out a way to reflect even such a mighty weapon as the twin buster rifle through repeated exposure, she knew that Kira would be there waiting for her as the Destiny closed in on the interlinked DRAGOON shield. She felt Mayu strain from behind her and inside her thoughts, shoving the equivalent of mental battering rams against the fortress walls that were Kira's mental defenses, but despite the effort she was putting in, Hope knew there was little chance of her overpowering Kira directly, given that he had demonstrated the ability to shrug off attacks even from Lacus, who was orders of magnitude more powerful in most situations than Mayu ever was. She was basically beating her bare fists against a brick wall, but even that was better than nothing.

Relying on her own senses to inform her of danger, Hope interposed her own beam shield in between herself and an innocuous building that was miraculously still standing despite the backblast of the deflected twin buster rifle shot. The building wasn't standing much longer though, as it was carved apart by four thick, dark purple energy beams fired from the Divinity's torso area. Alarms shrilled inside Hope's head as the beam shield took the brunt of six energy beams and two physical projectiles, the hailstorm of firepower consisting of two hyper impulse blasts, two plasma cannon blasts, two rail gun shells and two twin buster rifle blasts, all at once, and even as the beams were fading away, her beam shield emitter overheated and fried itself, rendering her physical shield into a simple anti-beam coated Phase Shifted armored slab once more, which was about as good as a sheet of thick tissue paper against the weapons of the Divinity Gundam. Hope opened fired with her twin barreled rail cannon, but the Divinity merely flicked its right hand and the hypersonic rounds were deflected away like swatted flies, courtesy of the gravitational field generation systems built into the Divinity's hands. With its left hand, the Divinity lifted and fired a shot from its combined beam rifle at the Destiny, barely two hundred meters away.

Hope hurled her half crippled shield into the path of the neon green energy blast, sacrificing the shield in exchange for her own life as she took a two handed grip on the quantum crystal anti-ship sword and hurled herself at the Divinity. Kira, of course, seemed to have anticipated this tactic and had shifted aside, but Hope had anticipated the anticipation and swung her plasma cannons over her shoulders to bear on the Divinity as he skidded to a halt, her swing cleaving through empty air. The hot blue-red torrent of light slashed through the air like a bar of sunlight made solid, but Kira was ready for that too, several DRAGOONs whirling over to interpose themselves between the two mobile suits. To Hope's impressed dismay, the DRAGOON's actually managed to not only divert the constant beam of superheated plasma, but actually bent it twice more and sent it right back at her, slicing both plasma cannons right off her shoulders and almost decapitating the Destiny at the same time. Countering a countered counter...Hope's head was starting to hurt with all the permutations of predictions and possibilities and trying to see eight moves ahead to the point where Kira hadn't seen ahead.

Unable to force her way through Kira's defenses, Mayu instead targeted the one weakness in his defenses, a weakness that was peculiar to only a certain type of Newtype...one that was in a deeply connected relationship with another psychic. In other words, Mayu's special attack, thought up one time when she'd had a little too much to drink and was railing against the unfairness of Kira and Lacus's psychic strength, targeted the special bond that two such intimate Newtypes had with each other. Even so, it could only work in certain very specific circumstances...such as where one of the bonded pair was somehow cut off from contact with their partner, which was why Mayu had dismissed the whole thing as a joke, because for that to happen, either Kira or Lacus would have to be dead, and that was simply too horrible to think about. But now, of course, that had happened, Lacus was gone. But the bond connection wasn't something that just went away, it was like an amputated limb, sometimes you would get feelings from it even though there was nothing on the broadcasting end.

Or at least that was her assumption, and she had a unique grasp of Lacus's mental taste. Good enough to at least partially mimic her on the psychic plane, at least to a degree. Of course, if Kira had any time at all to think about things, he would instantly recognize that it wasn't Lacus trying to contact him, since she was dead, but in the heat of battle, in the grip of very emotionally controlled powers, things might be different. Especially for someone like Kira, whom they both knew was completely torn up inside regarding Lacus's death, and probably somehow was still deceiving himself with the hope that she was just missing and not dead, as he feared she was. Kira had always been good about lying to himself over things like that. He wasn't the only one, it was only human nature to deny the horrible things that happened to you, especially involving your loved ones.

So Mayu tuned into what she was pretty sure was the mental frequency that Kira and Lacus had used for their intimate conversations...again not something anyone other than another psychic who had spent a great deal of time around them would know or even be able to guess, and broadcast a single phrase. _'Kira, help me.'_

The effect was both instantaneous and dramatic. The Divinity suddenly spasmed as Kira almost tripped over himself as he dodged back from another swing of the quantum crystal anti-ship sword, his attention completely stolen for just a second as his heart screamed in reply to what felt so very much like a desperate brush of Lacus's thoughts on his own, completely derailing all of his focus as he thrilled with the impossible thought that she really was alive after all. But even as he thrilled, he recognized the ploy for what it was, realized that he was grasping for a ghost placed there specifically to break his concentration and unbalance his emotions and subconscious. It was the ultimate method of taking advantage of his emotional nature and his unconditional, unreasoning love for Lacus Clyne, and it hit him with his figurative pants completely around his ankles, searing him with a tantalizing and very deliberate taste of what he might _never_ be able to have again.

And in his moment of distraction, Hope made her own move, activating a purpose built switch in one of her more passive systems, the EMP generators within the Destiny's hands; the generators had a side-effect of being able to protect the mobile suit against missiles and electronically fused physical munition warheads. Though, in this capacity, it was only designed to pulse in a 25 meter radius and at intensities that would not harm electronics with any real degree of shielding such as those possessed by most mobile suits and other war machines, by channeling almost 120 percent power from the Destiny's warp core and nuclear reactor into the twin EMP generators, Hope was able to unleash a single much more powerful EMP blast that scoured the surrounding hundred meters in a globe of crackling blue and white sparks. Even boosted as it was, the pulse wasn't strong enough to overwhelm the shielding that protected the Destiny or the Divinity themselves. But the DRAGOON units were another story entirely. There could only be so much shielding on them, with all the other systems crammed into the one meter long and half meter wide remote weapons, and with Kira distracted, they were still oriented to surrounded and envelop the Destiny, perfectly position to be hit by the red-winged Gundam's EMP. Even as Kira recovered his poise and saw what was going to happen next, not even he could react fast enough to prevent the burnout pulse from sweeping across his DRAGOONs and wiping their complex guidance and control circuits blank.

The DRAGOON's clattered to the ground like a steel rain, now little more than oblong and stylishly colored blocks of metal with no inherent flight or defensive capabilities above that of a metal bolt. But that didn't really register with Kira right at the moment, because he wasn't just angry. He was infuriated by what Mayu and Hope had done to him. There was the saying that all is fair in war, but taking advantage of his deeply personal feelings and insecurities in order to hurt him and distract him...it would take a saint not to freak out over that kind of attack. And Kira was, despite some prior effort on his part in times past, anything but a saint. He had been kind of half planning to just disable the Destiny before...he wasn't entirely through trying to convince his former allies of the unsustainable nature of their position just yet after all...but in the wake of this taunting manipulation of his love for Lacus, all thoughts of mercy fled from him as if terrified!

"THAT WAS THE WORST MISTAKE EITHER OF YOU HAVE EVER MADE!" Kira's infuriated voice suddenly roared over an open-channel, all-frequency communications line, through his tightly clenched teeth, his hand turning white knuckled on the hilt of his anti-ship sword. "HOW DARE YOU...YOU OF ALL PEOPLE!" He couldn't reach for the rumored Second Stage of Seed Mode with this much personal anger roiling within him, but he didn't need to go that far to beat Mayu and Hope anyway, even without his DRAGOON units, his regular Seed Mode would be more than sufficient here. He watched the purple seed with veined with glowing gold, fall through his mind. He had never wanted to hurt someone as much as he wanted to hurt Hope and Mayu right now.

_"_I told you he was going to blow his top." Mayu hastened to point out as she flinched away from the roiling storm of emotions that Kira was projecting out around himself, even as the Destiny Impulse Gundam launched from the Minerva's portside launch bay. "Now he's fucking PISSED!"

"Good." Hope replied, calmer than she actually felt. "Whether either of us likes to admit it or not, Kira and I are fairly similar in many respects. The most pertinent of which is that when we get angry...personally angry, not angry over wider injustice or a noble cause...when we get mad over an injustice done to us personally; we make mistakes we normally wouldn't. We act through anger rather than righteous fury, and in that distinction lies a great deal of difference in effectiveness. I want him steaming at the ears if possible. Even with Seed Mode, it's only going to make him reckless and more easily manipulated in the future."

"In the future!" Mayu shrieked, even as the Destiny Impulse landed beside the Destiny. "Hope, I can tell you this much, he's not planning on letting either of us live out the next twenty seconds, and he has the means to make his wishes reality here! Worrying about the future is...HOLYSHITWATCHOUT! Mayu screamed the last words in one breath as her mental perceptions picked up a colossal amount of mental energy moving their way very, very quickly. Both the Destiny and Destiny Impulse were suddenly lifted into the air by Kira's mental outburst, before then being thrown on a ballistic trajectory, soaring through the air for nearly an entire minute, before slamming into the ocean. The two Gundams landing nearly 100 miles east of Orb's coastline.

"Kira...can you hear me?" Cagalli asked from the cockpit of her Akatsuki Gundam, wishing she didn't feel so tentative.

"You should go away." Kira replied, his voice thick with pain and unshed tears. "I am not in the mood to deal with you right now, Cagalli. Please leave before I do something I'll regret later."

"You know I can't do that, Kira." Cagalli replied, as gently as she could. "You're leading an attack against my country. I can't just leave you alone, no matter how much we both wish I could. Just talk to me, Kira. We can work this out, I promise. I'm willing to listen to what you have to say."

"The time for listening has long since passed, Cagalli." Kira pointed threateningly at his sister's Gundam, causing the attendant Murasame's to cluster protectively between the two machines. "I was originally intending to show mercy to you and the others for old times sake...I was going to simply disable your Gundams but I wasn't planning on killing you. But things are different now that you've decided it's apparently okay to strike at me through Lacus. If you're not going to hold anything back, if you won't even hold her memory sacred, if even our most private connection is a legitimate target for you to attack me through, then you can expect no mercy from me."

"Kira, please, I have no idea what you're talking about, but I'm sure there was a good reason for..."

"No reason could justify the pain you've just inflicted upon me. I thought you were my friends. I thought you understood my pain, at least a little. I thought at the very least you would respect my sorrow and grief, not trample upon it and spit it into my face! I thought wrong."

"Kira, you're really scaring me. I don't know what happened but there has to be a way we can talk this thro..."

"No. There isn't. I'm done talking. I already told you that once before, but apparently I wasn't clear enough. You say you're scared, Cagalli? Not scared enough. It's obvious that you still don't recognize who I am now. I am Executor Kira Yamato, and I can never...and do not desire to...return to being Kira Yamato of Orb, or Gundam Miester Kira Yamato. Not after all that you and my other so called friends and family have inflicted upon me. This is your last and final chance, Cagalli. Only the fact that you are my living blood relative makes me give you this opportunity. Run away now. Abandon the Akatsuki at the city edge and go inland. Hide in the shelter with Allister and the other children, and order your troops to stand down and disarm. I can't promise things will go bloodlessly, especially with the Alliance still resisting, but this is your best option for preserving the lives of Orb's citizens. If you are still here by the time I count to five, I'll kill you and every last one of Orb's soldiers I find fighting. One..."

"Don't do this, Kira! This isn't the way...!" Cagalli protested.

"Two..."

"Your Majesty, I believe your brother is either deranged or really being serious. Either way, I don't think this is a bluff." One of her escorts radioed, nervousness bleeding through in every word.

"Three..."

"It doesn't matter. We can't back down, not even for my brother. You don't have to stay if you feel it would be pointless. I can't and won't order my people to commit suicide for my sake." Cagalli answered, trying not to choke up as she saw not a single Murasame flinch from their positions.

"Four..."

Cagalli gritted her teeth and brought her twin buster rifle down to point at Kira, even as she settled the crosshairs for her twin VTP 6 tube packs, one on either shoulder, upon the angelic Gundam. Lexi was already helping her adjust her targeting systems to a degree even Athrun would have found difficult to compete with manually. "Please, Kira...don't do this! I really don't want to fight you, how could I ever explain it to Allister and..." Cagalli all but begged.

"Five." Kira intoned, and in the next moment the Divinity was in amongst the Murasame's, a tiger among sleepy sheep, quantum crystal anti-ship sword in one hand, combined beam rifle in the other. In the space of two seconds, six Orb pilots were down, shot or stabbed directly through the cockpit, the tangle of huge mechanical bodies impeding the ability of the Murasames to effectively engage the blurry fast Divinity. But Kira did have to give them credit...not a single one of them faltered, in fact they just threw themselves at him all the harder, trying to physically overbear him and knock him backwards. It was a selfless and heroic act. It was also ineffective, as he waded forward, now with a sword in either hand and punching out with nudges from the Divinity's gravity manipulation system, none of the Orb machines managed to get closer than arm's reach before being hacked down and sliced apart and then sent flying in pieces by a wave of the Divinity's hand. He had become an angel of death for real. Smoke and flame erupted from the Akatsuki's shoulders as Cagalli launched her missiles, only to have them ensnared by the Divinity's gravity manipulation system and slammed into the ground and nearby buildings, detonating harmlessly to the sides and front of their target.

With a heavy but still determined heart, Kira stepped forward, sword raised high. The least he could do, despite all that had come between them, was to make it quick and painless. Cagalli would never know what hit her. A small mercy, but it was all that he was prepared to grant anymore. Explaining things to Allister would be tough, but Kira wasn't afraid of doing the hard things anymore. If his nephew came to hate him for this, then that was just one more burden Executor Kira Yamato would have to carry. It was the nature of his chosen duty. Cagalli started to bring up the shaft of her polearm, but the Burden had already showed him her pathetic attempt at a defense and his sword was coming down from an entirely different angle. She was finished. But just because he had already seen her die, and died a little inside himself as well, didn't necessarily mean that the seen future was the only possible future.

Something slammed into the side and back of the Divinity with all the force of a large cat pouncing up a not inconsiderably sized possum, striking him so hard that he actually lost his grip on his swinging sword, sending it hurtling end over end across the street before slicing into and through a building as the Divinity was knocked sprawling onto its face and side, his assailant agilely pushing off from the toppling Gundam even as it fell, landing with perfect balance half a hundred meters down the boulevard. As the Divinity slowly rose to its feet, Cagalli noticed that Kira had attached the twin buster rifle to the shield on his right forearm.

"Great." Cagalli sarcastically said, freeing her own twin buster rifle with her right hand. "Now, not only does Kira have an anti-ship sword and a combined beam rifle which he can attack me with, but he also has a twin buster rifle."


	137. Blended Realities

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 137**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

**Author's note:** A petawatt is equal to one quadrillion or 10,000,000,000,000,000 watts.

* * *

Her protector was a _creature_, one of vaguely reptilian origin, though sized to be almost as large as her Gundam, making it definitely the largest land bound critter she'd ever laid eyes on. Although actually it had seemed to come from the sky, despite a visible lack of wings. But it was definitely a lizard of some sort, though the large pointy horns on its head were unlike anything she'd ever seen on a lizard before. It wasn't until her Gundam's sensors registered the thermal signature of a large nuclear reactor and the magnetic resonance of armor grade structural metals within the reptilian's body that Cagalli realized she was't looking at an entirely natural creature, but some sort of cyborg. Cagalli was forced to assume it was in fact an ally. The fact that it had just saved her life from her own murderous brother was a significant factor in helping her accept this idea without too much trouble.

Kira seemed to be having a certain amount of trouble getting to his feet again after the surprise assault, which had left deep gouges in the MCPS armor along his back and shoulders, and seriously bent one of his wings, and even when he did succeed and managed to whirl on his attacker, he seemed rather confused by what he was suddenly facing. Though it might have been because he was actually seeing three or four overlapping images of creature, courtesy of the hit he had taken when his head slammed into one of the sub-screens.

Kira felt his nerve signals dragging like they were wearing lead weights as they passed through his body, his reactions slowed by a noticable fraction of a second as he squared off against the abomination in front of him. A gesture activated the Divinity's gravity manipulation system and recalled his accidentally thrown sword from where it was lodged in the ground to the hilt about half a block away, but even with a sword in one hand, and a combined beam rifle in the other, along with the twin buster rifle mounted on his physical shield, Kira felt a bit wary of this new foe. He decided to step back a bit and try probing its defenses from range. He was still more powerful at range than up close, if not nearly as adapatable. Still, he'd fought brilliantly without a DRAGOON system when he was in the Freedom, he didn't need the DRAGOONs any more than he needed crutches to walk with a lightly sprained ankle. They helped, but they weren't required. Kira shifted backwards about eight hundred meters and a block to the right, the movement causing sonic booms to ripple outward from the machine, blowing out what few windows remained in the surrounding buildings.

Almost at once his heightened senses screamed at him, but even forewarned, Kira barely had time to dodge forward as the reptilian creature appeared almost out of thin air right behind him, moving with such speed that Kira only caught a blur out of the corner of his vision even with his heightened senses. Spatters of sticky black nanomachines, which automatically repaired the Divinity Gundam when it took damage, dangled from his attacker's dextrous foreclaws as it stood studying him with its cold, flat golden stare as Kira once more faced off with it from just outside melee reach. Kira was really starting to miss his DRAGOON units now, having forgotten exactly how much he relied on being able to form a shield wherever and whenever he needed one, which now, thanks to Hope and Mayu, he couldn't do anymore. He had never seen such speed. The last time he'd fought anyone that was little more than just a blur to him had been Shinn in the original Destiny Gundam, and that had been millena ago! Kira fell backwards, reacting even without actually thinking about it, and that was all that saved him as the creature, which his computer finally identified as the CB-X01M Mudkip Gundam, pounced at him again, the claws on its front toes extended to kick through the Divinity's torso armor.

Primary attack missed, the four legged bio-machine lashed out with its tail as it passed over the angel-winged Gundam, deeply gashing the armor on its left arm and once more jarring loose the sword from that hand's grip. The angle wasn't quite right, but it squeezed off a streamer of acid from its tailsting as well, though it only melted concrete and earth instead of armor. Beginning to become frustrated at the elusive nature of the prey, even though it stood right there in front of it, Mudkip charged again as the prey quickly rolled to his feet, grabbed his dropped sword and slashed out with the recovered blade. Altering direction without changing momemtum, Mudkip dodged the strike and leapt upon the prey's back, bringing the surprised Gundam to the ground, unable to react in time to its speed. Rasing its head, Mudkip let out a victorious howl as the angelic Gundam flailed spastically, one of its arms bent at an extremely awkward angle beneath its body. She bent her head to chew through the spine of her prey, but was interrupted when the Divinity Gundam suddenly dissolved into a cloud of brightly glowing GN particles.

For his part, Kira was legitimately scared, because even with his predictive abilities and all his experience fighting super fast foes, he could still barely even keep up with his enemy's movements, and not even very well at that, given how close he'd just come to death. Even if he could feel the attacks coming, they simply came far too quickly for him to effectively react to. The difference between felt prediction and action were much less than a second. He was normally able to see farther ahead than just the next couple of seconds, but he was still so pissed off from what Hope and Mayu had done to him that he just couldn't focus, not even in the unfocused way that was conducive to utilizing some of his less divine abilities. Lack of thought was the ideal there, and he was anything but lacking thoughts at the moment, as all the pain and suffering he'd gone through in the aftermath of Lacus's possible death had been ripped back into the forefront of his mind by Mayu's little stunt at his expense. He needed time to get ahold of himself, but he couldn't get away from this thing! It was just faster than he was.

And then it was pouncing once again, and he was forewarned, but barely in time to interpose his sword between them, and even that was deflected with a casual twist of the monster's horned head, as its serrated jaws filled his field of view and its massive clawed toes raced for what would be his bowels if the Divinity were a living creature. But much as he hadn't foreseen the strange creature intervening on Cagalli's behalf, so too did he not see the intervention upon his behalf before it actually happened. And he wasn't sure whether that was because he just couldn't use his abilities properly at the moment, or because his mind just couldn't accept what happened as truly real...after all, just about the last person he would ever expect to intervene upon his behalf was Shinn, but that was indeed the case here, as the Eclipse Gundam seemingly materialized out of thin air at the Divinity's side with unreal speed and swatted the pouncing Mudkip Gundam away with a punishing backhand.

"You've left yourself open." Misato's voice suddenly said, as Kira and Shinn found themselves standing on the rails of the mass driver an instant later. A loud rumbling and thrumming of the track they were now standing on brought them back to the here and now, as some smartass in the Mass Driver's Command Center had apparently decided to try and get cute, by attempting to get rid of both the Divinity and the Eclipse in the same way that one would clean out a clogged hose; by ramming something heavy and stiff through it, or in this case, powering up the rail they were on and launching an empty shipping container at them at close to fifteen hundred miles per hour. Moving at such speeds, the still accelerating cargo container, which was normally used for shipping bulk goods up into near lunar orbit during peaceful times, crossed the distance between its loading bay and the Eclipse and Divinity in a matter of seconds. If it were to strike them, even the two Gundams would be splattered like bugs on a windshield.

This speeding cargo container the Orb forces thought to swat and mash him with, was actually just the tool of mass destruction that Kira had been wishing for. He raised both arms, locked his gravity manipulation system upon it at once, and stopped it dead in its tracks. A bullet or most other kinds of projectiles, which were propelled through a single application of explosive or heat type force, this meant that the object halted in midair, but for something like the cargo container, which wasn't so much shot as it was propelled by the power coursing through the rail beneath it, when it stopped, the ripple of power pushing it tried to surge and to force it forward, but to no avail. Unable to complete its circuit, the power pulse backed up like water behind a dam, more and more power piling in and trying to shift the load, and in a matter of milliseconds, the track section which the cargo container was stopped upon overloaded. Nearly two and a half petawatts of power erupted like a large nuclear bomb and flash melted the track into metallic vapor. That was one track they wouldn't be launching anything else on anytime soon.

"COULD SOMEONE KINDLY EXPLAIN TO ME WHAT THE HELL SORT OF CREATURES HAVE JUST BEEN ORBITALLY DROPPED INTO MY GODDAMN COUNTRY?" Cagalli shrieked across the communications channel that Lexi had created for her, connecting her with Fleet Admiral Joseph Icarus aboard the Incarnate, the Earth Alliance's flagship, which was even now assuming geostationary position above Orb's main island. The portly Fleet Admiral did his best not to appear flustered by Cagalli's words or her tone of voice, though it took several tries and a heavy swallow before he was able to articulate a coherent reply.

"They are the newest top secret weapon of the Alliance, uh, your Majesty. We call them Mudkip Gundams." Icarus began to explain.

"I don't care what you fucking call them! Who deployed them, _why_ didn't I know about them until _after_ they landed, and _why_ the _fucking hell_ can't I communicate with them? Give me some fucking answers you unbelievable asshole of a stooge!" Cagalli snapped back, as she observed the lizard-like Mudkip that had saved her from Kira's wrath only a few minutes before from what she hoped was a safe distance a half kilometer or so away. Given how fast the thing seemed capable of moving, she was beginning to think that maybe she ought to take a few more steps back. Like another kilometer or two. Because as far as she could tell, it had her brother, Kira Yamato, stumbling around all but _hopelessly_ on the defensive! Just because every time he knocked it away, it was back in his face before he could even plant his feet properly.

She'd never seen this creature before, nor the other one she could ocasionally catch glimpses of at it rampaged through another section of what she still thought of as _her_ capital city, where the fighting between the ZAFT invaders and the Orb defenders had become particularly fierce, the other one being some sort of six legged crocodile the size of a tuna trawler that breathed lightning. She honestly wasn't even going to try and classify _that_! And although they appeared to be on her side, as they _were_ engaging the ZAFT forces with gusto, they were also completely wrecking her city in the process, as they seemed to have no grasp of the sheer scale of the collateral damage they were inflicting. Yes, the buildings could be rebuilt, and it wasn't like the city hadn't been all but leveled in the past, but what she couldn't possibly accept as friendly fire casualties were her own soldiers, whom were now caught between the new arrivals and the enemy, and being butchered regardless.

It was really starting to look like she didn't just have one maniacal killer freak on the loose, aka Kira Yamato, since he seemed to have once again gone insane, she now had _three_ of them tearing up her city and the forces battling to defend or attack it, and she couldn't even communicate with them to try and point out that they were killing as many of Orb's own troops as they were the enemy, possibly more actually, since there were a lot more Orb troops in the battle zone than ZAFT troops. Even the international distress channel didn't seem to register on these new arrivals, these things, and so Cagalli had Lexi force her way through to the seniormost Alliance official she could find on short notice, so she could get some answers.

"They were developed and deployed on a need to know basis. You must not have been judged necessary to need to know, I'm very sorry. I wasn't made aware of them until just as they were being loaded into _my_ drop pods aboard _my_ ships!" Icarus retorted with shaky vehemence. This wasn't strictly true...he'd been kept peripherally in the loop on the Mudkip project after all, but having them deployed from his warships without reference to him still rankled enormously, enough to fuel a convincing tone of voice for Orb's fiery Queen. "I'm sure the President will inform you on the proper protocols for combats involving those machines soon. For now, I just recommend stepping back and letting them do what they were designed to do...destroying the enemy on their own terms."

"Like hell!" Cagalli spat back. "Maybe you weren't aware, way up there in orbit, Fleet Admiral, but these things are fucking running amuck down here and they're killing two and a half of our troops for every enemy they kill! And if you won't yank on their leash, I'll do it myself!"

"Only two for every one? That's not such a bad ratio, is it?" Icarus remarked dryly, though he realized it was a mistake even as he did so.

"These are _my_ people that are dying to your rampaging creations and you're making jokes? You're lucky you _are_ in orbit, Icarus, or I'd probably do something to you right now that would see me on death row! Get these shitty things under control right this fucking moment or I promise you, you won't like the results even if we end up winning! I don't have any more time to waste on your stupid ass right now! I have a country to defend!" Cagalli snarled and cut the communication line before she felt tempted to fly into orbit and do something violent against the Incarnate. Still fuming at Icarus's cavalier attitude towards the situation she and her people, and his people too for that matter, were facing at the hands, claws and teeth of these things, Cagalli searched for a way to productively channel her rage.

Her crosshairs suggestively flickered over the Divinity Gundam, where her estranged brother and lover was combating his reptilian adversary with obvious shock and bafflement, but even though he really had just tried to kill her not long before, Cagalli couldn't find it in her to try and return the favor.

Cagalli activated one of the Akatsuki's recently added ranged weapons, which were mounted in the somewhat bulbous yet still streamlined and rounded forearms of her Gundam, armored shutters sliding back as the mechanisms of her twin eruption cannons moved into firing position. Eruption cannon was a fancy name, but in reality they were nothing more than large hyper-impulse cannons, three 325mm hyper-impulse cannons per arm, mounted in a rotary fashion around a central power feed. Each hyper-impulse cannon, tuned to fire orange beams of coherent light nearly as thick as a well muscled human thigh, could be fired individually, in a slow gatling-type style that had two lenses cooling and recharging at all times while one was firing, allowing for a continous sweep of energy beam fire. However the weapons were most effective when fired in eruption mode, which spun all three barrels per arm at a rapid rate and then fired with all three beams per arm at the same time, while the barrels continued to rotate. This created a full meter-wide energy beam that actually twisted like a drill bit, applying a much increased degree of cutting action over a mere straight line beam, which was highly suited to piercing through defenses such as energy shields and heat resistant armor.

Firing in eruption mode required a brief spin up time and almost a three minute cooldown time between shots, but if she could but hit a target for even half a second with an eruption shot, it wouldn't matter how long she needed to recharge, that target would be down and done, for good. Even something like the Divinity. And if the Mudkip couldn't get out of the way in time, well, friendly fire went both ways, after all. Cagalli was prepared to sacrifice pretty much anything, and especially so a certain rampaging Alliance superweapon that had been kept a secret from her and her people. She lined up her shot, politely waited an extra half second for the Mudkip to get swatted away again, the creature almost seemed to be enjoying the rough and tumble battle more than anything else, and then opened fire with her left arm Eruptor. It was a perfect shot, Kira was distracted, half turned away and had always been slightly contemptuous of her anyway. It would be out of character for him to regard her as a threat, and plainly he hadn't, which meant he wasn't even paying attention to her.

It was a perfect shot, aimed right at the base of the Divinity's spine, with enough power behind it to cut even a Soveregin-class heavy cruiser in half like a stick of butter, but even as Cagalli was pulling her trigger, outside forces were conspiring to ruin her aim. Namely, the Eclipse Gundam that decloaked directly above her and tackled the Akatsuki, causing her shot to go very much awry, digging a deep molten trench through four city blocks, just nicking the Divinity's right leg, enough to vaporize the bottom half of the limb, before almost slicing the Mudkip in half from crotch to crown if the machine hadn't already been in the process of leaping to the side.

Half pinned beneath the Eclipse, Cagalli tried to kick her assailant free, but the pilot was having none of it and Cagalli gritted her teeth as she realized that, yet again, that she was a bit outclassed here. It wasn't like she'd ever had real delusions of being a Gundam Ace or anything, like her husband or her friends, but she liked to think she was pretty damned capable within her role and comfort zone. However, her comfort zone didn't extend to being pinned down, sat upon and threatened with a pair of quantum crystal anti-ship swords. Fortunately, Cagalli had another guardian angel watching out for her, and this time he wasn't a giant reptile, but rather the much more aesthetically and personally pleasing form of the Chimera, her lover's Gundam, which dived down from the heavens in its mobile armor form and alighted within arms reach of the two struggling mobile suits.

Shinn swiped at the newly arrived Gundam with one sword, even as he pinned down with his legs, the lambent gold machine that had tried to snipe Kira in the back while he was busy with that abomination was. The Chimera sidestepped his slash, and then turned on him with fury, hosing the Eclipse and the Akatsuki below him, down with a deluge of chaotic free plasma energy from the twin flamethrowers in its arms. Suddenly inundated in fire, temperature alarms screaming at him as the Eclipse's armor began to singe and smoke and smoulder, Shinn had little choice but to retreat from his position. Even so, he was going to at least take solace in the fact that the Akatsuki had gotten toasted too, but the shimmering gold Gundam sat up at once and seemed absolutely none the worse for the wear despite being bathed in flames.

"Thanks." Cagalli said simply, glad that her Akatsuki Gundam was still equipped with experimental MCPS armor, which meant that she could stand in her lover's fire for almost an hour straight before it really started to affect any of her internal systems.

Lacus studied the clash between the Divinity and the raptorian Mudkip Gundam for several seconds, even as she kept another eye on the singed Eclipse Gundam that had been trying to kill Cagalli. That wasn't something she was going to take lightly. Still, she could not help but blink in shock and drop her jaw a bit as she processed the battle between Kira and the stolen, and highly modified Celestial Being Gundam. "Is...is he having trouble with that thing?" Lacus stammered, not sure whether to be giddy or scared.

"Well, he's not roflstomping it, like he generally does to everyone and everything else, including us at times." Cagalli answered, borrowing a term from her son's internet gaming. It didn't make much sense to her; how anyone could possibly roll about on the floor laughing and still step on someone, but it seemed to be a fairly apt term for describing how Kira usually prevailed against normal people like herself and her friends. "I really can't tell who's actually winning, to be honest. I'm not sure who I want to win, actually, and that really bothers me...I mean, at least we _know_ what Kira's ultimate goal is when waging war, at least we know what his goal is when he's sane; ever-lasting peace."

Their little discussion was interrupted by Shinn moving to engage them once more, but it was more of a half-hearted effort to keep them from trying to interfere in Kira's fight again than any real attempt to kill either of them.

"Die." Cagalli and Lacus scowled in perfect unison, even as the Akatsuki and Chimera both effortlessly dodged the Eclipse Gundam's charge, and before he could even blink, Shinn suddenly found himself caught between both the Akatsuki Gundam and the Chimera Gundam. Finally, with a flash that lit up like a million supernovas, and a deafening boom that actually caused the ears of the two women to ring, the Akatsuki and Chimera both fired a full-burst from all their weapons. The Eclipse Gundam was almost instantly vaporized as the overwhelming firepower of four twin buster rifle blasts, four plasma beams, four rail gun shells and nearly a dozen CIWS beam blasts impacted on its armor simultaniously.


	138. Untapped Powers

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 138**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

"Ok, it's time to end this." Kira scowled, igniting all of the Divinity's built-in beam blades; one on each wrist, another on each leg. and finally one on each foot. He smirked as he lashed out at the Mudkip Gundam with a kick from his right leg, the pure white beam blade effortlessly cleaving its way through metal, flesh and bone. Kira turned to face the Akatsuki and Chimera, snarling loudly as a brightly glowing purple seed with shimmering gold veins dropped through the vast darkness of his mind, only to detonate with a world changing light and sound.

Lacus reacted instantly, triggering her own Seed Mode as she yanked Cagalli's Akatsuki Gundam backwards like a fish on a line, before then cocooning both of their machines in as many layers of GN fields and beam shielding as she could muster. It was enough, barely enough, but still enough, to keep them alive as Kira finally hit the long rumored Second Stage Seed Mode. Temperatures within an eight hundred meter radius of the Divinity Gundam suddenly plummeted over two hundred degrees, as molecular vibrations and motions were all but brought to an instant standstill by Kira's telekinetic grip. The oxygen and carbon dioxide in the air froze, encasing a sphere almost a mile in diameter in dry ice and liquid oxygen. Most of the troops within that area were already dead. The same could not be said for almost four thousand Earth Alliance, Orb and ZAFT infantry and armored vehicle troopers, and almost a dozen remaining Orb mobile suit pilots. The only merciful thing about their deaths was that they were fast. Most were turned into instant corpsicles before they even realized something was wrong.

Less lucky were those outside the sphere of ice, where the temperature was still shockingly tropical, because almost as soon as the ice had formed, Kira shattered it from within by instantly raising the temperature to almost a million degrees, not merely melting all the frozen gases but also igniting them in the process. Ice quite literally caught fire before exploding in a hail of rapidly vaporizing, razor sharp shards that cut down hundreds more soldiers and utterly devastated the Mass Driver Command and Loading facilities in so doing. The Akatsuki and Chimera Gundams were both physically knocked off their feet and buried under dozens of tons of sizziling snowflakes before they melted away with pops like those made by firecrackers. Cagalli and Lacus barely had time to sit up before Kira continued his rampage, as a sudden burst of telekinetic force ripped up a solid quarter mile of the ground and hurled it into the sky like a man throwing a stick for his pet dog.

A shower of sparks rapidly danced above the waters of the Kaguya Channel, as one of the few remaining defenders, a lone ORB-X103A+AQM/E-X01 Aile Buster Windam deflected the Divinity's pure white beam saber blades with its own glowing green energy blades. The ORB-X103A+AQM/E-X01 Aile Buster Windam was a mass production mobile suit used by Orb, the mobile suit having been reverse-engineered, with Celestial Being's assistance, from a pair of captured Earth Alliance units; specifically, the GAT/A-01E2 Buster Dagger and the GAT-04+AQM/E-X01 Aile Windam. Kira yanked back the controls to dodge the Aile Buster Windam's lethal saber swipe at his mobile suit's waist, then pitched forward again to avoid a barrage of beams from a Murasame streaking in from behind.

Kira Yamato grinned like a beast as he brought his beam saber down onto the Aile Buster Windam's beam blade. The pilot, whoever they were, could put up a decent fight in that mobile suit of theirs, and even in a mere Aile Buster Windam, but they still could not hope to defeat him, not like this, not here, and not yet.

The Windam lunged forward, trying in vain to push the Divinity back. The pilot of the Windam bit back a scowl in the cockpit, with the Divinity Gundam looming above her. "Why you continue to fight like this is a mystery to me." She snarled. "You know very well what we can do."

Kira cackled. "I'm very impressed and I'd expect nothing less than the best from any pilot whom was formerly under my command. But you can't kill me, and that's a fact that will cost you!" The Divinity hurled the Windam back with a saber swing and charged forward. The Windam darted aside, only for the Divinity to whip around and unleash the heat rod from within its left arm, the metal appendage instantly wrapping itself around the Windam's right leg, even as the angelic mobile suit lined up its plasma cannons, and opened fire. The Windam pilot hissed in frustration, slashing through the heat rod with her saber before then flinging her mobile suit down towards the earth, and less than two seconds later, the Divinity swept down upon her with a saber hack that the Windam's blade barely blocked.

The pilot of the Aile Buster Windam watched in muted horror as a pair of glowing white cylinders suddenly emerged from the Divinity Gundam's shoulders, while at the same time, the machine's faceplate split, revealing a large mouth filled with pure white, razor-sharp teeth.

"You're just a target!" Kira screamed, the Divinity Gundam echoing his words with a deep, rumbling shriek, as it somersaulted over the Aile Buster Windam's chest cannon blasts. The Windam brought its right arm around, saber blazing, but Kira jammed his physical shield into its path, stopping the brightly glowing energy blade. "We're going to crush you!" Sparks flew and the shriek of tearing metal filled the air as Kira brought his saber down, severing the Windam's right arm at the elbow.

An instant later, temperatures again plummeted, as molecular vibrations and motions were once more brought to an instant standstill by Kira's telekinetic grip. The oxygen and carbon dioxide in the air froze, encasing a sphere almost a mile in diameter in dry ice and liquid oxygen, just as it had before.

Less than half a second later, Kira raised the temperature to almost a million degrees, shattering this sphere as he had done with the last one, not merely melting the frozen gases but also igniting them in the process. Once more, ice literally caught fire before exploding in a hail of rapidly vaporizing, razor sharp shards that cut down hundreds of the retreating soldiers and utterly devastating the nearby facilities which still remained standing. Once more, the Akatsuki and Chimera Gundams were both physically knocked off their feet and buried under tons of sizziling snowflakes before they melted away with loud pops. Cagalli and Lacus barely had time to sit up before Kira continued his indiscriminate rampage, as another sudden burst of telekinetic force ripped up the shattered remains of the Mass Driver and its facilities, and effortlessly hurled them into the sky, the twisted structures plowing through a ZAFT dropship which was in low-earth orbit. Cagalli had now realized that she had no choice but to order a complete withdrawal. To stay on Kaguya, to stay with Kira, was to be smashed to atoms by his blind fury. The Divinity's pilot had clearly lost all conceptualization of friend or foe, and was in fact, simply lashing out blindly at anything and everything around him. Hopefully, there would still be a Kaguya to come back to later, but with the way things were presently going, Lacus and Cagalli weren't going to hedge any bets, as they sped away from the Divinity Gundam and the ravaged island.


	139. College Life

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 139**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

"What's with the bags?" Kira Yamato asked as he stood in the Excalibur's hanger bay a few months later.

"After all these millenia, you can't still be that dense." Cagalli giggled, twirling a large canvas bag full of what felt like iron bars but was actually clothing, above her head. "Lacus and I managed to get us transport back down to Earth. We're all sick of these ships. We're leaving in about an hour. You should get packed."

"That's news to me too." Hope piped up. "Where on Earth are we going? Back to Orb?"

Cagalli looked slightly upset. "No...not back to Orb. Orb is still in complete disorder right now. There have been some complications with its political structure. We're going to Switzerland, in the Eurasian Federation." She replied. Kira looked at her, noting her slight hesitancy when she talked about Orb's situation. He'd have to pry the details from her later, in private.

"Why Switzerland? I mean, wouldn't it be better to go somewhere where Natural-Coordinator tensions are less strained?" Hope observed.

"Switzerland is the best place to go, actually. It has a tradition of neutrality during wars. Even during the last war, they only provided medical services and supplies to the Earth Forces. It's also were several of the refugee camps are set up, so we'll be able to blend in with them. Besides, it's time we stopped trying to hide ourselves away from the problem. Coordinators and Naturals are going to have to learn to get along, or the entire war, and all of our sacrifices will be in vain." Cagalli replied.

Much later that night, Mayu Asuka staggered up the walkway to the huge mansion. She held a disposable camcorder in one hand and Hope Yamato's hair tie in the other. A livid hand-shaped bruise glowed on one cheek while her lips still stung with the force of Hope's last kiss. Behind her, Kira Yamato and Murrue Ramius inched their way along with hands raised to ward off any unseen obstacles. Both were blind drunk although not on alcohol. After getting lost and stumbling into a euro-techno dance club, Hope and Mayu had gotten separated from the other couples. After catching up with them four hours later, Mayu noted how both Murrue and Kira had somewhat dreamy and laid back looks on their faces, while Lacus Clyne and Cagalli Yula Athha couldn't stop looking at each other and the boys then laughing. Mayu herself had later acquired that same look when Hope had brought her to a dimly lit dancing club. Mayu hadn't been able to make out much in the darkness, although, from some half-seen glimpses of the other couples, she had started to wonder if she hadn't walked into a free form porno studio.

It was at the dimly lit club that Mayu had acquired the handprint. She had been decidedly too fresh after observing the other couples and Hope had slapped her down for it, quite literally. It was later, when she bought her a bouquet of pale white roses and a box of Swiss chocolates that she had kissed him. She'd immediately bought the camcorder and managed to get most of the next hour on film. The recordings consisted of Kira and Murrue tripping and falling down some stairs when Cagalli's dress accidentally got caught in a door and came off. Other recordings included standing at the top of a gothic cathedral and throwing paper airplanes with wishes written on them off into the night, walking arm in arm in arm in arm, six abreast, through crowded midnight markets and bustling restaurants, rolling down a grassy hill side by side and Mayu with root beer foaming out of her nose because of being tickled by Hope. However, she still had a good ten minutes of recording space left. She wondered what she would use them for. It was really hard to get a picture of Hope and herself kissing, since she generally forgot how to do something as simple as breathe at those times, much less record the event.

The five women had split up from Kira a few minutes before, having been corralled by a high-class jewelry store a few blocks away. Dead tired, Kira had kept going, anxious for some sleep. Mayu fumbled with the much too small key and opened the hallway door. Kira and Murrue crowded up behind her as she opened the front door to their mansion on her first try...a feat for which she was justly proud. Mayu stepped in and noted that the lights were still on. The instant after that the entire scene exploded into her mind.

Shiho was sitting on the couch, without her shirt. Misato Katsuragi had her head in Shiho's lap, and Shiho's arms were wrapped around Asuka's waist while she played with Shiho's hair.

"Yes, I truly believe you are both the two most beautiful girls in the world." Shiho said, before looking up. She saw Mayu and Hope. Mayu and Hope saw her. Cagalli and Lacus saw her. Murrue and Kira saw her. Nobody moved. A wide grin spread across Mayu's face as she brought the camera up and started recording.

"AAGGH!" Shiho screamed. Asuka and Misato were so startled that they lost their balance and fell off the couch. Shiho shot to her feet and headed around the couch at Mayu. "Give me that camera." She demanded. Mayu looked at him and then at the camera. Without more thought than that she tossed the camera to Kira.

"Run far, run fast. Get that footage onto an encrypted flash drive ASAP." Mayu recommended. Kira looked doubtful, but when Murrue added her endorsement, he left at a quick walking pace. Shiho tried to follow him but Mayu caught her at the threshhold and grinned. "You're not going outside like that, are you?"

"You can't leave yet, Shiho. You haven't fulfilled your promise yet." Misato complained. Shiho started to go outside anyway.

"You swore on your mother's council seat. You are going to keep your promise, right?" Asuka added. Shiho froze, trembling, and finally, she turned with glacial slowness.

"I'll keep my word. But you're both leaving right now." She told them. Both women nodded their heads.

"We wouldn't keep you from your friends." They chorused. Shiho walked up to the first of them, one Misato Katsuragi. She put her arms around the purple-haired woman stiffly and leaned forward, kissing her full on the lips.

"Good night, Misato." Shiho whispered as she let Misato go. She then turned to Asuka and repeated the process. "Good night, Asuka." She released her and glared at them. They meekly nodded and filed out of the room, quickly heading up the stairs and to their respective rooms.

"Damn, Shiho. DAAAMMNN." Hope said lightly. "Not just one...but two girls eating out of your hand and meekly doing what you tell them too. How do you do it?" Hope paused. "Or maybe the question should be...how did you do it?"

Shiho just glared at Hope and Mayu again. "I'm not going to talk to you. I'm going to go to sleep. Maybe, if I'm lucky, this will all turn out to be a bad dream." With those words, Shiho stalked up the stairs, pausing only to collect her shirt. As soon as she was safely upstairs Hope turned to Mayu.

"I never thought I'd see something like this. Did you? In all seriousness." Hope smirked.

Mayu only had to think for a moment. "No. I never...ever...thought I'd see Shiho in the company of two girls like that. Much less giving them a compliment and good night kisses. They must have coerced him. I just want to know what they used for blackmail. If it'll work on Shiho, it'll work on anyone."

Kira yawned and groaned slightly. He hadn't gotten nearly enough sleep last night. Staying up all night partying, which was the reason why he was so tired, wasn't usually what he considered fun. But last night seemed to release all the tensions that had been weighing him down recently. Mostly it was just having fun with his lovers, laughing and joking and fooling around, just like any other young adults might. It had been so long since he'd had any real fun like that. He'd almost forgotten what it was like to laugh until it hurt, or to smile so wide that his lips still felt loose. He yawned before he could catch himself. It was unfortunate, but he was the only one from the group of Celestial Being's senior staff. It was Algebra Two class and for some unknown reason it started at seven in the morning every day. Not that Kira was really bothered. He could do algebra two in his sleep.

Since peace had been established a few months earlier, despite the fractured timelines, Celestial Being had gone into hiding. The media, however, had been reporting that the Excalibur, the flagship of private armed organization, had encountered a computer error of unknown nature, one which caused all of the ship's power sources to shut down simultaniously, causing a massive power failure upon atmospheric reentry. According to the dozens of news reports, the disabled vessel plummeted into the Pacific Ocean from Earth orbit, splashing down about fifty miles East of the island nation of Orb. The media was also claiming that the only reason there hadn't been a massive tidal wave was because Celestial Being's leader had ordered the ship to be manually self-destructed before it hit the ocean, having succeeded less than a mile above the surface.

In truth, the massive warship was sitting in its custom-built dock a few miles off the coast of the Orb mainland, and Celestial Being's staff was now adjusting to a life of peace. After the first few weeks of peace, Kira and his eight lovers had decided to enroll at a college in Switzerland.

"All right class, now, since we have some new faces today, we'll be delaying the lesson so we can get introduced." The teacher, who was named Blake Lorngime, announced. Mr. Lorngime sported a tweed coat, flannel trousers and granny spectacles. A lot of the students thought he was pretty funny looking. Kira didn't really care how the man looked. That he could teach was apparent and so was the fact that he was a very nice and understanding person. Mr. Lorngime was also a counselor for the 11th grade.

When Mr. Lorngime gestured at him, Kira stood up. "Why don't you also tell us a little about yourself as well. How old you are, what you like to do for fun, what you want to be when you grow up, that sort of thing." Mr. Lorngime suggested. Kira nodded, but wondered just what the heck he was going to say. _'I can't really tell them that I'm the leader of Celestial Being and am the pilot of the Divinity Gundam.'_ He thought grimly to himself as he stood up.

"My name is Kira Yamato." Kira said, deciding to exclude his middle name. "I'm eighteen years old. I program computers in my spare time. As for what I want to be when I grow up...I think a scientist would be interesting." He finished, realizing as he did so, that he sounded like a nerd. Mr. Lorngime looked slightly surprised but nodded quickly.

"That's very nice, Kira. Why don't you sit next to Rebecca over there. She can get you oriented." Mr. Lorngime said, indicating a willowy girl with blazing red hair and fiery yellow eyes who gave a half-hearted wave. Kira blushed slightly, noting the envious looks of the other guys in the classroom. Well, there was no harm in sitting next to a pretty girl, was there? It wasn't as if he was cheating on his lovers just by sitting next to someone.

"Hi." Kira said quietly as he reached the indicated seat.

"Hello." Rebecca responded, looking bored. Kira sat down, feeling uncomfortable. For a brief moment the girl had reminded him of Fllay Allster. He tried to shake the image out of his head, knowing that nothing good would come of it.


	140. Unexpected Invitations

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 140**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

"What a day!" Hope groused loudly as she literally dropped her cafeteria platter next to Lacus and Cagalli. "Not only did I get next to no sleep last night, but all my classes have been pitifully boring! And the worst part is that I got detention for not paying attention in class! Can I help it if I learned the quadratic equation back when I was six?" She continued whining, even after Lacus raised an eyebrow.

"It's not a PLANT school. I would have thought you'd realize that. The trick is to act interested, even when you are bored out of your mind." Athrun Zala spoke up from where he sat with Meyrin. Hope sighed.

"That's a pretty complex trick." Hope commented. "Could you teach it to me?"

"If you find the work that easy, you can do my homework too." Cagalli suggested to Athrun, causing him to glance at her.

"That wouldn't be right. I could get in trouble for doing something like that." Athrun told her, and Cagalli immediately began to pout. "Besides, eventually you'd have to do some work on your own, and by that time, the teacher would probably have you doing Chaos theory, which you wouldn't be able to comprehend."

Cagalli thought about that for a few moments. "I suppose you're right." With that topic seemingly over, Athrun turned his attention to Hope. "What's this I've been hearing about Shiho? Lacus let something slip about something happening with her last night, but she shut up about it and won't elaborate." Athrun asked.

"Why do you want to know? You're already married to Meyrin, what's with the interest in Shiho?" Hope joked. Athrun brandished his cheap steel cafeteria knife threateningly. Hope held up her hands defensively. "Woah, down girl. Meyrin, control her before she kills me." Hope pleaded.

"You reap what you sow." Meyrin commented philosophically as she took a sip of her soda and turned her eyes away. Hope turned back to Athrun.

"Okay, okay, I'll tell you. Just put the knife down." She replied. Her fear and hesitation were an act. Hope dearly loved gossip, especially when she had something really juicy to tell, like she did.

"Put what knife down? Where you threatening Hope, Athrun?" Mayu asked, sitting down next to her.

"Yes." Athrun answered.

"Oh, okay. Just wondering." Mayu replied. Hope looked wounded.

"Aren't you going to protest?" Hope asked.

"No. I want to hear the story about Shiho too, since I was drunk out of my mind and don't remember anything. You'd better get to telling, or I'll menace you myself." Mayu answered. Hope sighed, faking being put out. Soon, the entire story spilled out and the other two girls were quickly laughing and covering their mouths in shock at the same time.

"She had her shirt off?" Mayu asked in wonder.

"She told them that they were the two most beautiful girls in the world? Shiho did?" Athrun said, as if he didn't believe Hope. By this time Lacus had rejoined the conversation and she backed Hope up, word for word.

"God's own truth." Hope swore.

"And you let her get away with saying that without protesting?" Cagalli asked sweetly. Lacus looked at her as if she had said something really stupid.

"Um...yes. Why should I have protested?" Lacus asked back. Cagalli shared a look of horror with Mayu. Hope and Lacus couldn't tell if it was real or feigned.

"You mean to tell me that neither of you protested and refuted her claim that they were the two most beautiful girls in the world? Despite the fact that both of you are married a group of the most beautiful girls on the planet?" Mayu asked, as if trying to set things straight. Hope had a bad feeling about where this was going. "I think they deserve to be punished for their indiscretion, don't you, Cagalli?"

"Yes, I do. Let us adjourn to elsewhere. We'll eat with some other guys, who will hopefully be more sensitive and with better manners." Cagalli agreed with a predatory gleam in her eye. "God knows I've had enough admiring stares this morning to last me all week." With that the two girls stood up and moved several tables away, where they started a conversation with the people already sitting there.

"Are they serious?" Lacus asked, bewildered.

"Don't ask me. I can't even understand Mayu, much less your girlfriend." Hope answered. She looked around the crowded cafeteria. Hope half-rose and waved her hand. "Hey, Kira! Murrue! Over here!" She called.

Within moments Kira and Murrue had hurried over and sat down, glad to be able to sit next to people they already knew. Lacus noticed that Murrue was clinging quite tightly to Kira's arm. "You should be careful, or he'll lose feeling in his arm." Lacus advised. Murrue blushed and loosened her grip slightly.

"Sorry." She apologized to Kira, who just shrugged it off with a noncommittal grunt. Lacus looked at him strangely.

"You're acting withdrawn again. What's the problem?" Lacus asked. Kira blinked at her and seemed to wake up.

"Just having a tough time adapting to school again." Kira explained.

"I'll say! I've never been stared at so much before!" Murrue said indignantly. "It's almost like there was something on my face for all my classes this morning. But there isn't, I just checked! I just don't get it." She complained. "And of course it doesn't help that I only have two classes with Kira, those being Current Events and History, the last two classes of the day."

"As if we didn't already have a more than sufficient grasp of current events." Kira sarcastically added with a brief smile. "I missed you." He whispered to Murrue and gave her a quick peck on the lips.

"I missed you too." Murrue replied and squeezed his hand.

"Wait, where are Lexi, Shinn and Luna?" Hope asked. "I thought that they were all going to be joining us."

"They're here." Kira and Murrue answered in unison, even as Lexi Yamato walked into the crowded room, followed by Shinn Asuka and Lunamaria Hawke, the thrio quickly manuvering to the table where their friends sat and finally setting their cafeteria platters down. Lexi sitting next to Hope and Lacus, whil Shinn and Luna sat by Athrun and Meyrin.

"I could easily teach every single course in this school by myself." The holographic woman sighed, plunging her fork into the mound of three meat lasagna sitting on her plate.

"I think any of us could." Shinn agreed as Lexi lifted the fork to her mouth and took a bite.

"I guess that's true." Lexi nodded after swallowing the food in her mouth. "Where are Cagalli and Mayu?"

"They got pissed off and left a few minutes ago." Hope answered.

"I'll fix that." Kira smirked, utilizing some of his more divine abilities and taking control of both Cagalli and Hope, essentially forcing the two women to return to the table where all of their lovers had gathered.

"Damnit, Kira." Hope growled, regaining control of her body. "What the hell was that for?"

"Is that a toothpick in your pocket, or are you just really poorly endowed?" Asuka Langley Soryu smirked, gesturing to Kira, as she walked up to the table and sat down, with Misato Katsuragi quickly sitting beside her.

"I don't have to put up with these wild allegations!" Kira scowled, grabbing his tray and leaving the table. After setting the tray in the tray return window, he left the cafeteria.

"What's this?" Kira said, holding up a bright orange envelope that had appeared in his private mailbox at the mansion. It was Friday afternoon, and after suffering a full week of school, Kira was looking forward to the weekend. The work was, of course, not hard, but pretending to pay attention in class was starting to get really tedious. Even in Current Events and History, which was usually filled with highly opinionated debate, was starting to get old. If Lacus hadn't been in the same class to calm him down, Kira probably would have utilized some of his more divine abilities to keep himself amused long ago. The teachers had the whole war all wrong. They discussed right and wrong and blame and all the other little things that didn't actually matter in a real war. Were the PLANTs wrong to use GENESIS to destroy the Ptolmaus Base? Just as wrong as the Earth Forces were when they nuked Boaz. Kira groaned, even now fed up with it. Who's fault was the war?

That was a very hotly debated topic. Most of the kids were Naturals, and so they believed that it had been the PLANTs who had started the war by breaking away from their parent countries. Lacus had nearly leapt out of her chair when the kid finished that presentation and Kira had had a hard time calming her down. He didn't feel so happy himself about that. It had obviously been Junius Seven which opened the war, but whether the Naturals or the Coordinators were to blame for it was not something he was prepared to accept as debatable. As he had so painfully learned, there was no right or wrong in war, not really.

Kira looked at the blank orange envelope curiously. It had no name or return address on it, and from its slimness and weight, there couldn't have been more than one or two sheets of paper in it. Kira walked back inside to the common room, where Asuka, Hope, Misato and Lexi were lounging about, sipping glasses of juice and sodas while talking about nothing in particular.

"What's that you got there?" Asuka asked him.

"I don't know. It was just in my mail." Kira responded.

"Well, open it and find out." Hope recommended. Kira opened the letter without difficulty and took out the single folded piece of paper. He read it silently. Hope looked at him. "C'mon, what's it say? It's not something private between you and Murrue, is it?"

"No." Kira replied absently. "You have been invited to the estate of Rebecca Azrael for her pre-christmas costume party. Costumes may be of any type, though there will be prizes for best costume. The party will take place on this Saturday night at 5:00 pm. Please arrive a few minutes early. Food and drink will be provided. The Party will last until 1:00 am, so come rested. There will be games and other activities. P.S. Our apologies for the late notice, but Ms. Azrael was only recently able to get parental permission to use her estate." Kira read out loud. Everyone else was silent.

"You got invited to a party?" Asuka asked at last.

"Why didn't I get invited?" Hope added.

"Maybe you did. I don't know about you guys, but I haven't checked my mail yet." Lexi answered.

"Who's Rebecca Azrael?" Misato asked. The room went silent again.

"How could you not know?" Lexi asked, unconsciously echoing Murrue's words to Kira on the Eternal. Misato waited patiently. "She's the most popular girl at school. She's the be all and end all of the school social scene. I've yet to meet an unattached guy that doesn't hunger to be her boyfriend. Heck, a lot of the already involved boys would dump their girls in a heartbeat if Rebecca said she would go out with them." Lexi explained, blushing slightly.

"Popular...Social Scene. Now I know why Misato doesn't know who she is." Hope commented. "She doesn't do popular or social scenes." Misato kicked Hope under the table. "Ow! Hey, at least I didn't say you were unattached." Misato kicked her harder this time. "Ahg! My leg!"

"KIIRRAA!" Murrue called, bounding into the room waving a sheet of paper and an orange envelope. She looked at them and noticed that Kira already held exactly what she was holding. "You got one too?" she asked.

"Yes. I didn't know you knew Rebecca." Kira replied.

"I don't. Or I barely do. She doesn't strike me as a very nice person. How does she know you?" Murrue replied.

"I sit next to her in math class." Kira replied. Murrue arced an eyebrow.

"And...?"

"That's it. She's very untalkative. Whenever I try to talk to her, she insults me." Kira replied. Murrue frowned.

"I don't like her." Murrue decided. "I think I'm just going to rip up this invitation. I'll tell Cagalli and Mayu to do the same with theirs."

"Woah, hold on a second there. Mayu got an invitation too?" Hope asked.

"Cagalli as well." Murrue confirmed. Hope jumped out of her seat and raced outside. She was back within a minute, holding two invitation envelopes proudly.

"This one was in your box." Hope said, handing Asuka one of the envelopes.

"How did you get into my mailbox?" Asuka asked suspiciously. Hope just coughed and looked away.

"I think I'm going to go change my code." Misato declared. Lexi went with her to do the same thing.

"This is odd. I've seen her around once or twice, but she never paid me any attention and vice versa." Asuka said, reading his invitation.

"Probably because she sensed that Cagalli would claw her eyes out if she did, and yours if you did." Mayu replied, grinning slightly. "Your girlfriend is scary sometimes. Violent and really pushy. How do you stand it?"

"I just remind myself that she's only acting that way because she's trying to take my mind off my problems. And that despite the fact that she has shot at me multiple times, I'm still alive and whole." Lacus replied, taking a calm sip of her drink.

"Don't rip up your invitation, Lacus." Kira said. "Rebecca is only insulting to me because she thinks I'm hitting on her and doing it very badly." He continued. This, however, was not the right thing to say, as Murrue instantly gripped him by the chin.

"You'd better not be!" She warned him, her voice instantly filled with donimant authority.

"Better not be hitting on her, or better not be doing a bad job of hitting on her?" Cagalli asked snidely. Lacus scowled as she kicked her lover under the table. "Ow...my leg. I need that...to stand."

"Then stop making stupid comments." Lacus growled.

Kira was getting flustered "I'm not! To either! I just try and start a normal conversation. Even just saying anything sets her off. It's almost like she expects me to be hitting on her and is confused when I don't." Kira protested. Murrue stared deeply into his eyes.

"I believe you. But now I really don't like her. Why do you want to keep her invitation?" Murrue asked, sitting down on Kira's lap.

"Maybe if she sees you and me together, she'll figure out that I already have someone I love." Kira broke off to kiss Murrue. "And she'll realize that I'm just trying to talk to her, not make a move. I don't think my math class could get any more tense. Every guy is shooting me jealous glares while I would gladly trade places with them and Rebecca freaks out every time I open my mouth. It's getting really annoying." Kira continued. "Besides, I've never been to a costume party. It sounds like a lot of fun."

"Okay. I suppose it can't hurt to give it a try. And a costume party would be fun. But if she keeps on you afterwards, I'm going to give her a piece of my mind." Murrue replied, as Kira gently combed his fingers through her ankle-length hair.


	141. Rebecca's Mansion

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 141**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

Suddenly, the entire mansion shook as a dozen fighter jets, their engines at full afterburner, screamed over the huge house.

"So much for peace." Kira sighed. "Lexi, where are they going?"

"According to their radio transmissions, it's only a drill." Lexi answered. "Nothing to worry about."

Kira looked slightly sick and had to lean on Murrue for support. After a moment the front door opened, and Athrun, Meyrin, Shinn and Luna entered. Lunamaria was giving Shinn a significant look, one which kept him cowed until the group got into the kitchen had started drinking the cappuccino Lexi had made. After about ten minutes, Cagalli and Lacus joined them.

"Is Yzak going to join us?" Lacus asked.

"He said he'd be coming, but that he'd take care of his own costume." Shinn replied.

Within three hours, they were ready. Most of them had simply decided to merge with their Gundams. Lexi, however, had displayed a level of daring far greater than anyone expected, even of her. She had adopted the costume of a Valkyrie from ancient Norse mythology. The holographic beauty was wearing a somewhat unrealistic, but completely jaw-dropping chainmail and leather bikini outfit, with knee high fur mountaineering boots, thick brown leather wristbands with polished brass studs and a mantle of fake wolf fur. She wore a short sword at each hip and a horned helmet on her head.

Everyone was gathered around, comparing and adjusting their costumes, when Yzak came down the stairs, already dressed. People turned to congratulate him on his costume, but instead everyone just stared in shock. Yzak was no medieval knight or explorer. He wasn't flashily dressed or scantily clad. He just wore his red elite Celestial Being uniform, with full dress honors, including medals, campaign ribbons and other decorations, all of which he had actually earned. His service pistol rode on his left hip.

"You can't be serious." Shinn said warily, eyeing the pistol, which, knowing Yzak, was certainly loaded.

"You can't show up in a Celestial Being uniform! People will freak out! And especially not armed!" Athrun declared.

"There aren't supposed to be any Celestial Being forces in Switzerland. Showing up like that to a party at a high profile person's estate could cause great political damage." Lacus said in a serious voice.

"So go change! With luck we can whip something up for you in the next hour or so before we have to leave." Cagalli ordered.

"No...I don't think I will." Yzak said calmly. He sat down on the couch in a relaxed manner. "You see, like Ms. Clyne just pointed out, there aren't any Celestial Being forces in Switzerland. Not a single soldier, and certainly not after the assumed destruction of the Excalibur. So if I show up like this, people will just assume it's a costume. Maybe not a very politically correct one, but a costume nonetheless. As for my gun, it's strictly for show. I left it unloaded. It's no more dangerous than those absurd swords you have armed yourselves with...less so actually, since you can still swing those hard enough to hurt."

"That...makes sense. Sort of." Mayu allowed.

"Besides, a really smart girl once told us that we should stop hiding from what we are. We can't go through life pretending we are something we aren't just to avoid causing others discomfort." Kira said, nodding at Cagalli.

"So we should just let him dress that way, and deal with the consequences, whatever they may be, when they arrive?" Lacus asked.

"Exactly. A Celestial Being soldier is what Yzak is. If other people choose to see it as a disguise, well so much the better. If not, then Yzak shouldn't have to hide who he is because it will upset them. Besides, we'll all be there to get through it together." Kira replied. Lacus leaned against his armored form, taking comfort in his close presence.

A moment later, Asuka and Misato rushed down the stairs. The purple-haired woman was dressed in her Nerv uniform, while the redhead had donned her plug suit.

"We should get going." Yzak said, as Asuka and Misato entered the living room.

"Yeah. Rebecca's mansion is a good ways away. And it never hurts to be early." Shinn said. He then offered Luna his arm. "Shall we go, then?"

"The guests will be here soon." Rebecca's eternally cold and bitchy voice echoed down to Rey from the balcony of the main banquet hall. "Please make sure that your people are in their positions. I can't tell you how much of an inconvenience this whole thing is. Why you have to lure them here to kill her is beyond me." She continued. "I'm going to finish getting ready. Maybe I'll be able to have a little fun with the other guests while you and your brutes do what you do. Oh yes...once you're done, send Zacharis to me. I will make good use of him." Rebecca finished, her voice trailing off as she walked away.

Rey sneered and checked the action of his silenced pistol, which was tucked inside his suit coat. For the party he was masquerading as James Bond, the famous British super-spy from several centuries ago. Though, of course, his weapon was no costume fake. The plan was good, he reminded himself. _'Though I really hate working with Rebecca. She's an evil and twisted little bitch, that's for sure. Though I never knew before now what a nympho she was_._ She calls Zacharis to her quarters twice a night at least, and_ _often more than that. What does she see in that monster? What has he got that I don't?'_ Rey asked himself, finally getting down to the root of his anger. He was pissed that Rebecca, just about the most gorgeous girl he had ever seen, was having Zacharis Frost plow her belly twice a night or more, but she would barely even give him, Rey Za Burrel, the time of day. Rey wondered viciously if Muruta Azrael knew what a whore his little girl really was.

Rey shook his head and went on his rounds, making sure everyone was in place for the mission. Several hundred students from Rebecca's school had been invited, to serve as cover for the real guests, those being Lacus Clyne and her party. The students would be separated into several groups after some dancing and dining, and sent out to the grounds for games. However, the games of Lacus and her friends would take place in the estate forest, and would be of a decidedly fatal persuasion. Killing both Lacus and all her friends didn't bother Rey. Those who befriended a Coordinator were nearly as bad as the Coordinator itself, in his mind. They deserved to die, if for no other reason than to serve as an example to those who would pursue their folly.

Twenty of the more fanatical and proficient Blue Cosmos soldiers had arrived earlier in the day. Each was dressed as an angel for the party and would nominally serve to give the guests directions to bathrooms, carry coats and to provide similar assistance if needed. However, each was armed with a silenced pistol at all times, and there was a large stash of submachine guns out in the woods, just waiting to be used. They would make sure the targets did not leave or otherwise get missed by Rey Za Burrel, Zacharis and Amy Sihov.

Next Rey took an electric golf cart out to the clearing in the woods where the killing would take place. It was far enough away from everything else that any noise could be explained away as fireworks or animals. Amy was in costume at the center of the clearing, stirring a pot of greenish sludge. She was garbed as a wicked witch, with a long warty nosepiece and sallow, greenish skin. A wig provided stringy white hair, while tattered black clothing and peaked hat completed the look. The stare she gave him made Rey feel decidedly nervous as he got out of the cart.

"What's in the pot?" He asked, deciding not to be humorous.

"Melted plastic, sewage, a few freshly killed animals from Zacharis, some water." She replied. Rey shivered slightly.

"He's been killing animals again?" He asked, slightly disturbed.

"Wrings their necks or skins them alive usually. Sometimes he just bites their heads off, or twists off a limb and watches them bleed to death." Amy reported, which didn't make Rey feel better.

"Why hasn't he killed Rebecca yet then?" Rey Shinnd, only realizing afterwards he had been thinking out loud.

"She chains him to the bed and screws the hate out of him. She gets beaten bloody during the process, but he always climaxes before he can get his arms around her neck. Even Zacharis isn't any more capable after sex than any other male." Amy Shinnd with a shrug. "That gives her time to get away and off him, and gives him enough time to get rational again. Or less crazy anyway. That's the only way to do it with him. You gotta go fast, hard and heavy, or else he'll get your neck in his grasp and it's all over. He doesn't really care if you're dead or alive, after all. I know." Amy commented. Rey believed her. She had been Zacharis's lover before the transformation upgrades, and even for a little while afterwards. She knew him better than the scientists did.

"Just make sure you're ready when the time comes. With any luck, the mine in the bottom of that witch brew will take most of them out or disable them so Zacharis and I can finish them off." Rey ordered. Amy sketched a salute with no real feeling behind it. She started to stare at him like he was a freshly bleeding side of beef, so he touched her kill switch just obviously enough to get her to get back to her absent minded stirring of the sludge. Rey climbed back into the cart and sped off again, glad to put her behind him but dreading his next meeting even more. Rey drove to the front drive area of the manor. Zacharis Frost, in full Grim Reaper regalia, stood like a blot of dark madness against the pale wood of the double doors that lead into the main hall of the manor.

Zacharis's costume consisted of a voluminous robe of heavy black cloth, complete with hood, that he wore draped entirely around himself. The hood was so expansive it covered his entire face in deep shadow, except if you shone light directly into his face. Not that that would help much, since his entire face and upper neck was covered by a bone white skull mask that looked disturbingly lifelike but was actually just a prop, to Rey's relief. With Zacharis's dark eyes, it was usually impossible to tell where he was looking while in his costume, but Rey could feel the others gaze on him as he climbed the steps towards Frost. The culmination of Frost's outfit was his scythe, which was made of hard oak stained black as night by Frost's own hand. The blade was made of military grade titanium-steel, sharpened by lasers to a molecule thin edge and had been hand forged by Frost himself as well. Rey had seen Frost chop down an oak tree one foot in diameter with a single swing of his homemade weapon. Of course, Frost also carried a large caliber revolver under his robe somewhere. It wasn't loaded yet, and wouldn't be until the time was right, or else Frost would invariably use it on somebody.

"You know what to do?" Rey asked once he reached Frost's position.

"I greet the guests. Welcome them to the costume party. Tell them to go inside. Kill Lacus Clyne when the time comes. It's simple." Zacharis responded dryly.

"We're also killing her companions, anyone who is near her when she arrives. Make sure you remember that, Frost. None can escape. They all have to die." Rey commanded.

"They all will die." Frost promised, his voice turning to that of a bloodthirsty beast. "I will chop theem, slice them, gash theem, and cut them...all into tiny little pieces. Then..." Rey held up a hand to stop Frost. He didn't want to know what Frost would do with minced up bodies.

"Once we're done with the mission, Ms. Azrael has requested your presence." Rey Shinnd distantly.

"She likes what I do to her, doesn't she? You think she's disgusting for what she does with me." Frost noted, his voice changing inflection again, becoming analytical. "You're jealous of me, Rey. You want me to kill her, choke her, destroy her, because it is I who she cries out to, not you. Maybe I'll get my arms around her tonight. Then you won't have to be jealous any more."

"Shut up, Zacharis." Rey snarled, feeling uncomfortable. He took out Zacharis's kill switch. Being a new and untested form of Biological CPU, Zacharis Frost had a pair of bombs implanted in his chest and another head, these bombs were rigged to detonate if Rey activated the killswitch, alternitively, the bombs would go off if Frost killed Rey. "Just shut up, or I'll push this button."

"Would you, really?" Frost asked. Rey decided not to answer and stalked inside, shivering in a cold sweat. As he did so, the guests began to arrive.

Kira quickly and skillfully pulled his Mercedes Benz Sprinter passenger van to the curb in front of the Azrael mansion and killed the engine. Kira himself, along with Asuka, Cagalli, Hope, Lacus, Lexi, Misato, Murrue, Mayu, Shiho, Dearka, Shinn, Luna, Athrun and Meyrin quickly piled out of the van and walked towards the entrance to Rebecca Azrael's estate.

"This place is huge!" Miriallia noted as they stood in front of the large house. Athrun just shrugged and Cagalli didn't seem all that impressed either. But considering that their parents were both former heads of state, it was a good bet that this wasn't all that impressive to them, or at the very least, wasn't something new to them. Dearka was suitably awed, just like she was though. She wondered about that for a moment, since Dearka's father was a PLANT councilman too, but then she remembered that Dearka had been practically disowned from his family after he joined the military. Probably not a happy memory.

Kira stared in false amazement at the size of the house which he now stood in front of. It must have had at least sixty rooms divided among three floors. The property looked to be at least a few square miles in size, with its own lake, small forest and plenty of open grassland. A small convoy of hybrid golf carts were ferrying arriving guests from the finely wrought iron gates up the long winding driveway to the manor itself.

"Was it just me or did was that guy staring at me the entire time he was checking our invitations?" Lacus asked as she and Kira hurried inside.

"Oh, he was staring all right. And I know why." Kira replied.

"Really, why?" Lacus asked, curious.

"Because I have the most beautiful girl in the world as my date." Kira told her. Lacus felt her cheeks heat up and felt her heart flutter most pleasurably in her chest.

"Why, Mr. Yamato, sometimes you say the most romantic things." She demurred.

"I guess I did learn something from hanging out with Athrun and Dearka then." Kira commented as they followed the straggling trail of guests into the dancing hall and banquet area. The room was huge, easily able to accommodate the hundred plus guests already there. About ten or so older men and women, dressed as angels, circulated throughout the crowd, carrying tReys of drinks and snacks. Kira and Lacus caught up with their friends and Kira managed to snag two glasses of what tasted like cherry flavored carbonated water.

"AND NOW...YOUR GRACIOUS HOST!" One of the angels announced in a stentorian voice. Descending down a wide staircase from an upper balcony was Rebecca Azrael. She was dressed in what could accurately be called a royal outfit, as her costume was that of a Queen from the Renaissance times. She had no escort, which had every unattached guy in the room drooling with glee. As she slowly stepped down the stairs the room went quieter and quieter, until, by the time she reached the floor, there was absolute silence.

"Well, what are you all standing around for?" Rebecca asked primly. "This is a party, after all. We're supposed to have fun." With those words loud music started playing from hidden speakers and the lights started dimming.

"She knows how to make an entrance." Shinn noted.

"Until she crashes through the back wall in a mobile suit and then climbs out holding an undisturbed iced drink, I'm not going to be impressed." Dearka shrugged. A chuckle came from behind them. Dearka, Shinn and Luna turned to see a man dressed in a high quality fashionable suit, with precisely trimmed hair and an artificially lined face. The young man held a martini glass in one hand.

"Who are you supposed to be?" Dearka asked.

"Shaken...not stirred." The man replied, as if speaking some sort of code phrase. Seeing they had no idea what he meant he sighed. "Have you really not heard of James Bond?"

"No." Shinn lied.

"He was a movie character from a few centuries ago. Spawned a whole series of spy-thrillers about his exploits." Rey Sark explained. "I'm Rey Sark. I'm in charge of the activities for this party." He introduced himself.

"I'm Dearka Elsman."

"I'm Shinn Asuka."

"Asuka? Of the Heliopolis Asuka's?" Rebecca asked curiously. She appeared from behind Rey like a monsoon of silk skirts and jewelry.

"Yes Ma'am. Though now my remaining family lives on Earth." Shinn replied politely, bowing in an elegant manner.

"Because of the horrid business during the war, yes. Please, will you come talk with me? It's so hard to find someone of similar class who has something real to talk about." Rebecca asked. Shinn looked doubtful until she slipped her arm through his, and then he started looking happy.

"I don't like her." Luna noted after Rebecca had left.

"She sounded so arrogant." Miriallia looked at Rey and touched her mouth in contrition. "I'm sorry, what a horrible thing to say about someone you work for."

Rey shrugged. "I don't mind. I often agree with you. And you are?" he asked.

"Miriallia Haw." She replied.

"Well, Miriallia...Dearka...Shinn...if you'll excuse me, I have some preparations work to be done before the games are operational." Rey said, leaving to circulate around his real target, Lacus Clyne. Rey didn't know who her boyfriend was, but he had certainly picked the wrong date tonight. In a few hours, he'd be dead and buried...or whatever it was that Frost did with his victims. Rey glanced around at those he assumed to be Lacus's friends, since they had arrived with her and were chatting amiably with her and her boyfriend.

A lot of the people in that group sounded reasonably familiar for some reason, but Rey couldn't figure out why, because their disguises, most of them being costumes of legendary mobile suits, were so complete that he couldn't get a look at their faces. Then there was one guy with a mean looking and livid scar across the middle of his face. Rey was startled for a brief moment, because scar-face was wearing a Celestial Being elite uniform. Rey shook his head. There were no Celestial Being soldiers in Switzerland and there was absolutely no way for them to enter the country without someone knowing. Rey shook his head again, because two of the girls were wearing uniforms from an ancient military organization known as Nerv, which had been under the command of the United Nations. Nearly a millenia earlier, after only fifteen years of existence, Nerv had been forcibly disbanded by the United Nations, and Nerv's entire staff had been executed for crimes against humanity. The woman with purple hair was wearing the uniform of a high-level officer, possibly a captain, while the red-head wore a crimson plug suit, the special suits worn by the pilots of the Evangelion Units. Rey just wondered where they had gotten their costumes, because, as far as he could tell, they were exact replicas of the real thing.


	142. Night of Terror

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 142**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

"I fail to see the purpose of holding a game way out in this dark forest." Lacus said, looking around nervously. The trees seemed to be trying to claw the sky into shreds, reaching with dark, leafless branches to form an arch over their heads as they drove along.

"It's a game that requires a proper setting to be fun." Rey called over his shoulder from the guiding cart. "It also requires lots of space. Trust me, it'll be very rewarding."

"I hope so." Lacus sighed, snuggling closer to Kira. Or as close as their armor allowed. She sighed mentally. _'Why did we have to choose to merge with the our Gundams? I can get close to him, but not to the real soft part, the hurt part of him that I know is still in there. His emotional armor still keeps me away, and though it appears as shiny and bright as anything, I know he's still hurting inside, even after all these millenia. I really wish he had worn something like Lexi did, and truly let me into his heart.'_ A few minutes more and they entered the clearing. A pot of some boiling liquid gave off a moist stench. Rey made sure they were all gathered around the pot.

"Now, don't mind the smell. It's just a prop and you'll soon be far enough away from it. I'll be right back; I need to do some final adjustments." Rey instructed them before slipping off into the woods. Zacharis stood watch over them, fingering his scythe.

"I wonder what the game is?" Athrun said.

"Whatever it is, I hope it does involve some distance from this pot. It smells horrid." Cagalli replied. Miriallia stared at the pot and then clutched Dearka's arm.

"I thought I saw an animal head in there." She explained.

"You know, lets just back up a bit. There's no way it should matter whether we cluster around the carts or around the pot." Dearka decided. Everyone agreed. They turned around and headed back towards the carts. After only a few steps though there was a bright flash of light and a thunderous boom. A shockwave of immense proportions tossed everyone to the ground and even flipped the carts over. Athrun clearly heard shrapnel buzz by just over his head.

"What the hell?" Dearka exclaimed, fingering a bloody graze along one of his shoulders where a piece of invisibly fast metal had cut him.

"They avoided the bomb." Frost said gleefully. Everyone turned to look at him.

"Who the fuck are you! What just happened!" Kira demanded.

"I told you that I'd make you pay, Lacus Clyne." Zacharis intoned.

"Zacharis Frost? What the hell is going on?" Kira snarled, starting to get to his feet.

"I would have thought that would be obvious. This is an assassination." Rey said, stepping out of the trees, submachine gun in hand. Ten Blue Cosmos fanatics, similarly armed and still in costume, fanned out behind him.

"Move Lacus and the girls over here." Zacharis demanded. Rey shrugged. It didn't matter. He gestured with the barrel of his gun. Slowly, the girls separated from the guys and walked over towards the Blue Cosmos people. The guys were a tense bunch, full of pent up anger and energy. Rey made sure that he was covering them himself the entire time.

"Now...for the preservation of our Blue and Pure world...I sentence Lacus Clyne and her companions to death." Rey said wickedly. His finger tightened on the trigger, as did the fingers of his ten fanatics. The clearing exploded with automatic weapons fire. Rey had to give the guys some credit. They managed to avoid the initial barrage by taking cover behind an overturned cart. Suddenly, a pistol barked and one of the fanatics dropped, a single bullet having hit him right between the eyes. Rey quickly dropped and rolled for cover. Having the victims armed wasn't in the plan. How one of them had managed to get a pistol was beyond him. Unless, of course, the guy dressed in the elite Celestial Being uniform had a gun. Could he have been an actual Celestial Being soldier? If so, that was just an added bonus, in Rey's mind.

"So, they want to kill us, do they?" Kira snarled, as the Divinity Gundam's eyes changed from amethyst to blood red and the faceplate split, revealing the machine's tooh-filled mouth. In an instant, Kira was once again on his feet, with hundreds of bullets pinging harmlessly off his armor. "Now's your chance to run for cover." The amethyst-eyed man smirked.

"Keep firing!" Rey called out. Suddenly, what appeared to be nothing more than a blur, but was in fact Zacharis Frost, sped by him, speeding towards Kira. Frost smirked as he swung his scythe horizontally, clearly intending to cleave Kira in half at the waist.

"You people are truly pathetic." Kira chuckled as Frost's scythe uselessly impacted with his side, the blade of the weapon vibrating loudly for a few seconds before actually vibrating so violently that the blade shattered itself into three seperate pieces. "Now it's my turn." The amethyst-eyed man smirked, freeing the crystalline blade known as Soul Calibur, from his back with his right hand, while simultaniously freeing its counterpart, Soul Edge, with his left hand, even as his twin rail guns and plasma cannons clicked into their firing positions, while the twin multi-phase cannons in his chest began to glow with a white light.

A fraction of a second later, all ten of the Blue Cosmos fanatics were suddenly vaporized as the angelic machine opened up with a full-burst from its weapons. As the four energy blasts slowly dissipated into the night, and the rail gun shells lodged themselves in a pair of trees nearly a mile away, the Divinity's eyes went dark as Kira passed out.

Kira awoke with a start. His entire body felt like it was being used like a drum by a pack of insane musicians. Kira closed his eyes and tried to remember what had happened, but no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't. Within a few short weeks, Athrun, Dearka, Kira, Shinn and Yzak had mostly recovered from the traumatic experience that they suffered in the forest, although Dearka still ran out of breath after running for more than a mile and Yzak still walked awkwardly from time to time. Asuka, Cagalli, Lacus, Luna, Meyrin, Misato, Murrue, Miriallia and Shiho had all been going to counseling to deal with the recurring nightmares which they had been having. For once, Kira and Athrun had been able to offer advice to the girls, rather than the other way around, since they knew all about recurring nightmares. Hope and Mayu had bounced back rather quickly from the experience, as hale and hearty as ever, and spent as much time as possible with each other, and with Kira.

Athrun and Meyrin were also quickly back to their old activities, wowing their friends with their insatiable desire for each other. Luna had started watching them like a hawk, a fiercely protective, Coordinator hawk, but a hawk nonetheless, which put a crimp on their more outrageous behavior and caused a few shouting matches between Athrun and Luna, mostly about who had initiated what with whom. Dearka and Miriallia continued at their slow and safe pace, learning as much about each other as possible. They learned that they each had a love of nature and frequently took long walks in the countryside, although they avoided forests, having bad experience too recently in one to be comfortable.

Kira, Asuka, Cagalli, Hope, Lacus, Mayu, Misato, Murrue and Shiho, on the other hand, each went through several stressful periods, first with Lacus, and then in a cascade effect, every one of them, becoming severely depressed and moody. However, their complex relationships slowly got back on track, like a gyroscope that had been tipped on one side, only to wobble until it regained its balance. They had several fights amongst themselves, but nothing irrecoverable was ever said and they all managed to work through the squabbles, since all nine of them were extremely patient and gentle people at heart.


	143. Back to War

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 143**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

Dozens of beam shots flashed by as Athrun Zala's ZGMF-X09A Justice Gundam, nestled within the menacing confines of its METEOR support system, roared towards Jachin Due. Atop the Justice's subflight lifter crouched Cagalli Yula Athha's MBF-02 Strike Rouge, and to Athrun's left was Kira Yamato's ZGMF-X10A Freedom Gundam, also protected in a METEOR.

Somewhere behind him, Athrun heard the duel between the LCAM-01XA Archangel and the LCAM-02XA Dominion suddenly draw to a close. A pair of Earth Alliance GAT-01 Strike Daggers charged towards the Archangel, but Mu La Fllaga's GAT-X105 Aile Strike Gundam took them both down with a single beam shot. The Dominion's three Gundams; the GAT-X131 Calamity, the GAT-X252 Forbidden and the GAT-X370 Raider, closed in, in defense of their mothership, but the Archangel's Lohengrin cannons fired and the positron blasts slammed into the Dominion's bridge. A moment later the ship exploded into a multi-armed fireball, ripping the ship's center apart and sending the engines and legs flying, and the Strike backed away as the Dominion's three now-orphaned mobile suits floated around the wreck, motionless.

There was no time to reflect, all that remained now to Athrun Zala was the fortress ahead, and the massive superweapon GENESIS that hung in space next to it. It had to be stopped, not just GENESIS, but this entire war, before anymore blood was needlessly shed. He had to break in on foot, find the main command center, find his father, and stop him and his weapon and his war before they all went completely out of control.

"Kira, are you alright?" Cagalli's voice crackled over the radio.

Kira was silent.

"Kira?" Athrun asked.

"Yes." Kira answered at last. Athrun gazed inquisitively at his friend. Something was wrong.

A pair of GINNs stormed towards them, and Athrun cut off his rumination to blast off their heads with his METEOR's beam cannons.

Kira had gone through some kind of hardship, but wasn't letting on what. Athrun cleared it from his mind and returned his focus to the fortress; soon it would all be over, and they could return to their peaceful lives. Kira would be okay. Cagalli would be okay. Lacus would be okay. It would all be okay, as long as he could get to that fortress and stop this insane war.

Suddenly, Kira's METEOR broke off and disappeared in another direction.

"Kira!" Cagalli shouted.

Athrun looked over at Kira in confusion. _'Where is he-?'_

"Something's come up." He said shortly. "Look after Cagalli."

Athrun looked on ahead, and magnified the scene, to find Rau Le Creuset's ZGMF-X13A Providence Gundam, its DRAGOON units weaving a web of beam shots around the GAT-X103 Buster Gundam. There was the Dominion's escape ship not far away. Athrun momentarily thought of breaking off to help, but Kira was on his way there. He would deal with it.

"Alright then." He said quietly.

The METEOR-clad Justice Gundam roared on towards the fortress known as Jachin Due.

The beam shots slashed through the Buster Gundam's Phase Shift armor, and as the cockpit machinery threw sparks and warning lights flashed, Dearka Elthman cursed. The Providence's DRAGOON units darted around him, surrounding him in beam fire. In a series of hits, the Buster's left arm, head, and right leg were gone, and the Buster's power was almost fully depleted. He cursed and looked back up at the victorious Providence.

"Dearka!"

Dearka blinked and looked up, finding Yzak Jule's Duel Gundam Assault Shroud diving in to the rescue. Beam shots from the Providence forced it away; then a storm of missiles flashed around the hulking Providence, and Kira's Freedom Gundam dropped in with a slash from its METEOR beam saber. The Providence and its DRAGOON units moved off to engage the Freedom, and Yzak's Duel moved towards the ruined Buster.

"Dearka! Can you move?" Yzak exclaimed, as the Duel took hold of the Buster's remaining arm.

Dearka tried to move the Buster's controls, but nothing happened. "No, there was a power surge." He answered "The battery is fried."

"Shit." Yzak muttered. The Duel glanced around the battlefield. A Strike Dagger came shrieking in, firing its beam rifle, but Yzak protected the wounded Buster with the Duel's shield and fired back, taking down the attacker in two shots to the torso.

Dearka looked over at the Duel. Yzak was bound by ZAFT military law to capture him and return him to his ZAFT superiors, where he would surely face execution. He had deserted and fought against his own side and killed ZAFT soldiers. He knew he had done the right thing, but his ZAFT superiors would not see things his way. He closed his eyes, expecting the end.

"The legged ship." Yzak said unexpectedly. "I'll take you back there. Where is it?"

Dearka blinked in surprise. Archangel? Would Yzak take him there? But he would be punished too.

"Yzak, ZAFT will come after you too if you do that!" He yelled. "I'm going to go back to ZAFT in chains to die, I can accept that, now don't go down with me!"

"Not if there's anything I can do about it!" Yzak snapped back. "Now tell me where the goddamn legged ship is!"

"I'm serious, Yzak, you'll be indicted too!" Dearka exclaimed. "I did what I did, I don't regret it, now the end's here and I just have to face it! Stop trying to go down with me!"

"Like hell I will!" Yzak shouted. Dearka fell silent, blinking again. "You did what you did, I did what I did, there's nothing either of us can do about it now, but I'm sure as hell not going to leave you out here! Now for the last fucking time, tell me where the legged ship is!"

Dearka looked away. Yzak didn't care about the consequences; he never did. Dearka resignedly punched in the coordinates, and Yzak's Duel took off towards the Archangel.

"You again, eh?" Rau Le Creuset grolwed as the Providence Gundam's DRAGOON units flashed around the Freedom, showering it with beam fire. Kira tried to charge through the net, but a volley of shots blocked his path. He looked up and saw the Providence, and heard Rau's voice.

"You shouldn't even exist!" Rau snarled. Kira ignited one of the METEOR's beam sabers and took a swipe, but the Providence expertly dodged and dove in with its own saber to slash the METEOR's own saber in half. Kira abandoned the ruined weapon as it exploded and charged on with his remaining saber ignited. "If anyone discovered you, they'd want to be like your kind." Rau went on, as the Providence dodged again and surrounded the Freedom with beam shots.

The Providence's DRAGOON units flashed in, forcing Kira back, and the Providence itself sliced the second beam saber in half as well. Kira drew the Freedom's sabers and hurriedly deflected the Providence's shots, boxed in by the DRAGOON units.

"You're not a person! You're not even a Coordinator! You're just an experiment, a tool, a weapon!" Rau laughed as the Providence descended on the helpless Freedom.

The Freedom dodged as a beam shot slashed near its head. "I'm not just a weapon!" Kira exclaimed, firing back with the Freedom's cannons.

The Providence dove out of the way. "And who will understand that?" Rau laughed. The Providence's DRAGOON units darted around Kira again, as he backpedaled away from the Providence itself. "No one will understand!" he shouted. The DRAGOON units stormed in, Kira found his METEOR being blasted away from the Freedom, and the Providence itself raged in for the kill. "No matter who!"

The Providence came down with a beam saber slash, and Kira ejected the remaining parts of the METEOR before they exploded around him. He drew the Freedom's shield and beam rifle and went on the attack. Rau laughed as Kira charged.

"It's useless!" He cackled as the Freedom struggled to hit him and was surrounded in a web of beam fire. "You know you're fighting for the wrong thing!" Rau looked off to the side, as the DRAGOON units fenced Kira in. The Dominion's escape shuttle was there, and there she was, Fllay Allster, another piece to this puzzle. He flashed a grin towards the Freedom, feeling a twinge of pressure from his white-armored foe, Kira had detected Fllay's presence, although he would not yet know how or why…and if Rau had his way, he never would.

The Freedom slithered out of the net the DRAGOON units had woven and charged, and Rau deflected the Freedom's beam saber swing with the Providence's shield. The mobile suits parted again, and the Freedom dove through an opening in the DRAGOON volleys.

"You know as well as I do that if you go back you'll be just a weapon!" Rau cried.

"You don't understand thing!" Kira shouted, as the Freedom stormed forward with its saber. The mobile suits met again in a shower of sparks.

"Of course!" Rau cackled. "Humans can only understand what they've experienced!"

The Providence shoulder-rammed the Freedom and knocked it away, forcing it back on the defensive. Kira grunted in frustration, charging back into the Providence's face.

"'One day,." Rau laughed, as the beam sabers clashed again. "One day they'll understand!" He pushed the Freedom away and bombarded it with beam shots again. "That's what you said! Well they don't understand! And they never will!"

Kira grunted in pain as the Freedom rattled. "You're wrong!" He shouted.

"Am I?" Rau laughed again, as the DRAGOON units went on the attack again. "Eyes that see only blood, hearts that feel only hatred, hands that know only how to pull a trigger, and you say I'm wrong?" The Providence came down with a slash, and the Freedom repelled the saber stroke with its shield. With a pair of shells from the Freedom's rail guns, the two mobile suits separated again. Rau fired his beam rifle back at the Freedom, nearly clipping its left leg as the mobile suits clashed again in a beam saber lock. "Look at that thing, GENESIS! Does it look like something made by creatures that won't destroy themselves?"

"Actually, yes, it does look like something made by creatures that won't destroy themselves." A third voice, one which sounded like a more mature, older Kira Yamato, suddenly cut in over the communications line. Rau and Kira both blinked in surprise as the Providence's DRAGOON units suddenly went silent, their Phase Shift deactivating. "Now, dance!" The third voice laughed as the void around the Freedom and the Providence suddenly exploded with hundreds of beam blasts, some neon green, some blue-red, and others a brilliant white. Rau and Kira both began to wildly dodge the sudden hailstorm of energy beams.

"What's that?" Kira's younger-self asked aloud as the Freedom pointed towards a mobile suit bearing an appearance and color scheme similar to the Freedom. Unlike the Freedom, however, the new arrival possessed a pair of brightly glowing, pure white wings and shining amethyst eyes. Rau and Kira also noticed that the angelic machine was also very, very heavily armed, more so than even the Freedom and Providence combined. From what they could see, this mysterious, angel-winged mobile suit possessed what appeared to be a sniper rifle in its right hand, and a huge crystalline sword in its left hand, the machine's other weapons appeared to consist of a pair of rail guns on its hips, a pair of beam sabers stored just above the rail guns, a trio of beam cannons in its chest, a large aerodynamic shield on its left forearm which currently mounted a pair of massive rifles, there was also a smaller aerodynamic shield on its right forearm which appeared to possess a pair of CIWS guns, and finally, the machine's weapons were rounded out by a pair of CIWS guns in the chest and another a pair of CIWS guns in the head.

Suddenly, without any warning, nearly two dozen green energy beams lanced out from the blackness and slammed into the Providence Gundam's shield, and Rau grunted as the glowing hyphens flashed around him. Up ahead loomed a dozen ZGMF-1000/AAL Noctiluca ZAKU Warriors, all equipped so that they could operate in any enviorment, and with the other mobile suits engaged by other enemies, it would be up to him alone to defeat them.

At the Providence's side, the Freedom pulled back behind its shield. "Have fun." Kira's younger-self smirked, interrupted by a bazooka shell from one of the ZAKUs. "Genocidal maniac."

Rau looked up ahead, at the dozen ZAKUs, all armed to the teeth. "This isn't very fair."

The Freedom's eyes flashed with a golden light as it turned and sped away, leaving the Providence to fend off the strange mobile suits on its own; Rau jammed the controls to the left as one of the ZAKUs let loose a blazing shot from a heavy cannon. A second ZAKU rushed in close, diving under its comrades' fire, and then whirled towards the Providence with a beam axe ignited.

Instead of connecting, it met resistance as Rau activated the beam saber on the end of the Providence's shield. He batted away the ZAKU's axe and brought the beam rifle to bear, only for the other nine ZAKUs to focus their firepower on him, once again forcing him to take cover behind his shield.

Afterimages rippled across the blackness as the Eclipse Gundam charged towards its prey, anti-ship sword drawn. The formation of mobile suits broke their ranks, but a GINN was not so lucky as Shinn drove his sword through and slashed the mobile suit in half. Up above, a ZGMF-601R GuAIZ-R leveled off its rifle and rail guns, only for a volley of plasma blasts to come streaking out of the void and blow the mobile suit to pieces. A pair of AMF-101 DINNs, which like the Noctiluca ZAKU Warriors, had been modified for use in space, backed away from the group, missile launchers opening; the Eclipse darted forward and slashed them both half from the shoulder to the waist.

"These guys are nothing." Shinn growled, as the Eclipse turned towards its next target and the ZAFT mobile suits scrambled for cover. Up above him, an AMA-953 BABI, which like the DINNs and Noctiluca ZAKU Warriors, had also been modified for use in space, leveled off its guns, and was answered an instant later with a beam cannon barrage from the Twilight Gundam, which roared by overhead as the wounded mobile suit staggered back and exploded, and the remaining ZAFT mobile suits clawed for distance and threw up a wall of firepower.

Machine gun bullets pelted the Eclipse's Mirror Coated Phase Shift armor, and Shinn glanced up in time to see a single ZGMF-515 CGUE wheel around and unleash a storm of missiles on the Eclipse, even as, a ZGMF-600 GuAIZ rushed up from below, with its beam rifle ready.

The CGUE charged in, sword raised, only for the Eclipse to whip around and slam it hard in the torso with its knee. As the silver mobile suit reeled from the blow, Shinn slammed his left-hand palm cannon into its chest, fired a blast through the mobile suit's torso, and then flung it down towards the GuAIZ. The green mobile suit backed away behind its shield as the CGUE exploded, and Shinn seized his chance to fire a blast from the long-range beam cannon, the blast drilling straight through the GuAIZ's cockpit, and blowing the mobile suit apart.


	144. The Lucifer Gundam

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 144**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

In the research facility of the Mendel Colony, there was a fearsome firefight, people were getting killed left and right as bullets were fired back and forth. Though they had achieved the element of surprise, the Celestial Being infiltration force was dealing with hardening resistance as more ZAFT troops arrived. The strike force had already lost nearly a third of its men, and they had to hurry since their overall progress would determine the mission's success.

As soon as he heard the explosions outside, the young brown-haired man got into his pilot suit and headed down to the mobile suit deck, with his gun drawn. Unfortunately though, when he arrived, the area was a mess and parts of the deck were in flames, even as gunfire flew about in all directions. A close shot brought him back to reality and with uncanny precision; he brought down his attacker with a shot to the head. He then started returning fire at the infiltration force, taking out several men in the process, especially concentrating on those who were close to grabbing the two gundams.

After seeing two more of her men fall to the ZAFT gunfire, the strike leader yelled out her orders. "Give us some cover fire, we're going to get the suits and get out of here."

She and two of her comrades were quick to sneak in as close as they could while the rest increased their rate of fire forcing even the brown-haired man down. However, the young brown-haired pilot immediately saw what was about to happen, and as the small group went for the two mobile suits, he immediately jumped down onto one of the gundams while taking out both soldiers, but missing the leader, who returned fire at her assailant. They both landed on one of the mobile suits and ran for the cockpit while trying to fire at each other. Soon they had their guns pointed right at each other's face when an explosion suddenly pushed them so close that they could see each other's face clearly.

Both nearly hesitated before another explosion occurred, one that shook them back to reality. With the facility nearly engulfed in flames and the strike force preparing to head out, the girl immediately jumped into the cockpit of the waiting Gundam, even as the young man fired at her.

As soon as she was in, she immediately activated the mobile suit's systems and read the name of the suit. "ZGMF-666 Lucifer Gundam." She took a deep breath after reading the schematics. "So, this is a demonic version of the Freedom Gundam, which means that the pilot I saw was him."

Back outside, the brown-haired pilot made a run for the other Lucifer Gundam, and as he jumped in and activated his systems, he was thinking the same thoughts. _'So that was her wasn't it and if she is here then the others are surely nearby.'_ His hands and face tightened in anger as he spoke aloud to himself. "I'll make sure to send them all on a one way trip to the worse kind of hell possible." On one of the Lucifer Gundam's view screens, he saw the other Lucifer Gundam rise, and he turned to prepare for battle.

Both the Infinite Justice Gundam and the Akatsuki Gundam were engaged in saber duels with GuAIZ mobile suits, which they dispatched easily, after a few seconds, they got word that the mission had been accomplished.

"All units; fall back!" Athurn yelled, as the remaining Astrays, Murasamaes and Tauruses quickly began heading back to the Excalibur, while Athrun and Cagalli waited for any sign of their prize. After a moment of tense waiting, an unidentified object appeared on their radar. The two mobile suits turned and their pilots were treated to a horrific sight; the image of a dark, almost evil version of the Freedom Gundam floated in front of them.

As soon as it moved to approach them, Athrun hailed the pilot of the mobile suit. "Who's in there?"

"It's me, Lacus." She answered. "The other suit is already activated."

"Is that what I think it is?" Cagalli asked.

"Yes." Lacus nodded. "Guess who is the other pilot is."

Before they could continue, the other Lucifer Gundam appeared and its pilot announced his presence angrily. "I thought that I would find all of you here, my old friends."

Athrun immediately activated his communication screen and got the shock of his life. In the seat of the other Lucifer Gundam, despite the fact that he looked a lot older and parts of his skin was pale and broken; it was none other than his former childhood friend Kira Yamato. "It's been a long time hasn't it, Kira."

"Well, it hasn't been long enough for my taste." Kira snarled, before pulling up his beam rifle and firing at all three of his former comrades, forcing them to dodge, before the Lucifer Gundam activated its wings and charged, igniting a beam saber and raining down beam machine gun fire on his foes.

"I'm surprised that you out of all people, would embrace this lifestyle." Kira smirked as he suddenly flew at the other Lucifer Gundam and the two machines locked beam sabers.

"Ten years of the recent events can really do that to a person." Lacus retorted.

"Well, you made a mistake, now let those be your last thoughts before I send you to hell." Kira laughed as he charged in again for another beam saber strike.

For as long as humanity had ever ventured into space, the moon had been an important stepping stone. Even with the damage it had suffered during the end of the First Bloody Valentine War, the moon still functioned as the main headquarters for the Celestial Being space fleet and in a way was its very own Pearl Harbor.

With word of the raid coming in and what they had discovered, an emergency meeting was ordered and many were called up for active service. All group and squadron commanders were to attend the conference.

In a waiting room, Cagalli, Athrun, and Lacus were brooding when the door opened and two new arrivals walked in, both of whom they all recognized. Athrun was the first to speak. "Hello, Yzak, Dearka, how's everything."

"Well everything was just going fine until you three had to participate at that raid." The silver haired pilot replied sarcastically.

After a moment, Dearka added. "Everywhere you guys go; you create havoc that we have to clean up."

"Well we ran into unexpected trouble." Athrun responded.

"Yeah, I'll bet to have both your suits banged up like they are." Yzak nodded.

"They had several new models piloted by very experienced pilots and they also had the other Lucifer Gundam." Cagalli sighed.

"But they shouldn't have been that much trouble." Yzak replied.

"Guess who developed the two suits and was piloting one of them." Cagalli sighed.

"The pilot of the other Lucifer Gundam was Kira." Lacus spoke up, beating them to the punch.

That sent a chill down both Yzak and Dearka's spines and it was a few minutes before Yzak could speak. "You're saying that Kira now works for them." Both of them gravely nodded and silence reigned, as the two new arrivals had to deal with the information.

After a moment of silence, Dearka asked. "Anything else we should know about before we say our prayers?"

"The other three suits that we battled were more powerful than even the Calamity, Forbidden and Raider Gundams of the First Bloody Valentine War, and they were the reason both my suit and Cagalli's were so damaged badly." Athrun said. That was a big problem for both Yzak and Dearka, whose gundams were reliable but were seriously lacking in firepower needed to take on the suits that Athrun had described.

Suddenly, the doors slid open and several admirals walked in. One of them was former Archangel Captain Murrue Ramius, who still looked very beautiful. She immediately nodded to her friends, who quickly took their seats before the lights dimmed.

Within minutes, footage of the recent attacks and the raid on the Mendel Colony were played. Shocks murmurs came from all directions as the sight of what Lacus, Athrun, and Cagalli had faced was being played for them. Yzak's face was contorted in anger, while Dearka's was thoughtful as they watched the battle footage. Even the admirals were spooked by what they saw.

When the footage ended and the lights came back on, everyone's attention was turned back to the as the most senior of the admirals, a dark haired man by the name of; Daren Larson, stood up to speak. "We've been suspecting that ZAFT had been developing new weapons and that it had been preparing to resume the war, united under a new banner."

As the ships streaked out of the Excalibur's hangers, a communications signal suddenly cut across all frequencies, coming in loudly, clearly, and in a tone that turned everyone's spines to ice. "Well, well, you're all bigger fools than I thought, and now you're virtually blind." Murrue was about to order the communications officer to trace the communications link, but the voice chuckled slightly. "Don't bother trying to trace this signal, you won't find me until the last seconds of your life."

"Is that you, Kira?" Murrue asked.

The voice was silent for a few seconds before finally replying. "I'm glad you already know the voice of your death."

"Why are you doing this?" Murrue asked.

Kira's reply was much harsher than she expected. "It was people like you, Blue Cosmos, Athrun and Lacus, who threw my friends and I into this madness all those millenia ago, and now I'm just returning the favor for what you all stole from me." Murrue was shocked and was about to say something, but Kira silenced her and broke her soul. "I hope you see Mu La Flaga when I send you to hell." With that, Kira signed off and there was a deathly silence for exactly ten seconds before someone yelled out. "Admiral, I've got an energy spike."

Before Murrue could issue any orders, a huge wave of energy beams, all from the Lucifer Gundam, sliced through the armada, completely destroying many of the smaller ships, in addition to ripping a Soveregin-class battleship into several pieces. The fleet barely had time to respond before another wave of energy beams from the Lucifer impacted, causing even more severe damage.

"Do we have any power left to the hangers?" Murrue asked. One of the officers nodded and Murrue instantly yelled out a single order. "Launch all mobile suits, now!"

Despite the heavy barrages of energy blasts that were repeatedly striking the ships, Asuka, Cagalli, Hope, Lacus, Mayu, Misato and Shiho managed to clear the mobile suit deck before another wave of beam blasts arrived. Without a moment to lose, everyone started searching, but Lacus's suit, which had been redesignated as the ZGMF-X14A Chimera Gundam, was the only one that could see through the interference, and it took her no time to locate Kira.

"I've detected Kira. I'm transferring his position to the rest of you." Lacus announced, and within seconds, the others were also seeing the same information, even as the pink-winged Chimera Gundam raised its combined beam rifle, aiming it towards the Lucifer Gundam, and firing into the night with several explosions resulting as the blasts struck home against the armor of cloaked enemy ships and mobile suits, some of which had decided to break and attack too early.

The void of space itself seemed to snap open, a flash of blue light filling the blackness as the Lucifer Gundam roared into battle with its anti-ship sword drawn and ready. It lunged down towards the closest Windam and slashed it in two amid a cloud of afterimages; four of the remaining Windams turned their guns to the sky to fire back at the black Gundam, but it foiled their blasts with another blur of illusions, and charged again.

"The Lucifer Gundam!" Hope shouted; the Destiny wheeled around, beam cannon ready.

The Lucifer whirled down to the ground and cut a pair of Tauruses in half. It skidded to a halt on its feet and turned towards the Destiny, Hope's face contorted into a scowl. "Excalibur, activate all weapons and target the Lucifer Gundam! All units, pull back to the ship!"

"You're not getting away that easy!" Kira cried, and the Lucifer lunged after the retreating mobile suits, but a moment later the sensors beeped; he glanced down at the radar, his blood ran cold, and his eyes shot up towards the Excalibur.

"Son of a bitch." He whispered, an instant before the Excalibur opened fire and world lit up.


	145. The Delta Quadrant

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 145**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

"Turn on your TV to the news. Right the hell now!" Dearka Elsman's voice said as he burst into the room, his face pale as snow.

"What?" Kira asked, shocked and suddenly awake by the sight of his distraught friend. "What's wrong?"

"It's best you see for yourself. Cagalli too. Turn the fucking TV on, dude. Right the fuck now!" Dearka's voice quavered even as he blasphemed. Kira quickly unlatched the door, and Dearka barged right in. "Why are you gawking at me? You have to see this, though you're going to be pissed." Dearka said, hurrying past Kira and over to the TV. Kira followed behind him, wondering if Dearka had blown a fuse in his head. Any speculation faded when Dearka flipped the channel from a commercial to a news service.

"For those of you just joining us, this is a live update on the Orb crisis." The anchor was saying. Dearka turned the TV up so that it was blastingly loud. "Incontrovertible evidence was released to this news service along with all others worldwide. This evidence conclusively proves that the ruler of Orb, the young Cagalli Yula Attha, is in fact a pretender to the throne." Kira's jaw dropped. He heard a scream of surprise from the bedroom. "This photo, along with several DNA tests and other documents, were found outside the studio this morning, along with a note from a concerned world citizen explaining their meaning." The photo on screen was an exact replica of the photo Cagalli's father had given her just before he died.

"Formerly thought to be the daughter of Lord Uzumi Nara Attha, Cagalli has now been proven to be the daughter of the scientist Dr. Ulen Hibiki, deceased. Dr. Hibiki was a major proponent of Coordinator engineering several decades ago, but was killed in the Mendel Colony bio-weapon disaster. This sudden development has cast serious doubts as to the sovereignty of Orb and to its current position as member of the World Peace Organization, led by Celestial Being. The peace talks have ground to an absolute halt, as ambassadors struggle to confirm whether or not Orb is actually a country or not. There is panic and rioting in the streets." The announcer continued calmly. Cagalli had thrown one of Kira's large shirts over her nudeness and had rushed out into the common room.

"This cannot be happening!" Cagalli said in denial.

"I don't think we knocked the picture over...and I don't think it was us who opened that window last night. We're being deliberately attacked." Kira replied, his voice full of cold rage.

"That's a pretty low blow..." Dearka started to say. Then the situation got much worse.

"Wait...we have just received an update. Younger viewers are urged to ask for parental permission to keep watching. The following tape is rated "M" for mature audiences only." The announcer said, touching his ear as he received voice confirmation of the update. He swiveled in his chair to watch a TV screen, eyes wide in anticipation and dread. The image that came up on the screen was steady and clear, with no jerkiness or fuzziness like most amateur video tapes have. Two young people, completely nude, were standing on a white plastic mat that had four rows of five colored circles on it...one red, one yellow, one blue and one green. As the tape ran, the young people, one a young man with brown hair and amethyst eyes, the other a young woman with blond hair and amber eyes, contorted into a bewildering variety of sexual positions and acts. The tape continued for fifteen long minutes before the announcer reappeared. "For those of you just joining us, that tape showed Cagalli Yula Attha, the former ruler of Orb, having sex with Kira Yamato, her twin brother. There is a strong rumor going around that they recently became engaged, if not already married."

Kira heard a thumping noise and saw that Cagalli had slumped to the floor in a dead faint. Dearka was staring at the screen, his eyes practically bugging out of his head. "Who did this? Why do they want to ruin our lives?" Kira asked in a confused voice.

"We go now, live to the royal palace of Orb. Regent Ledonir Kisaka has appeared at the top of the stairs to the royal palace. The entire agenda of the peace talks has been called into serious question. We go now, live." The announcer was saying. The scene jumped to a live image outside the royal palace of Orb. Kisaka was indeed standing at the top of the stairs, surrounded by a massive mob of reporters. Outside the palace gates, what looked like thousands of Orb citizens milled about, confusion and anger on their faces. "Regent Kisaka! Regent Kisaka! What do you have to say about the real reason why Orb wanted to have peace talks? Now that it has been revealed that your titular ruler has been engaged secretly to a Coordinator...her own brother, no less, and has secretly married him, how can any country ever trust Orb's intentions regarding peace with the PLANTs?" A reporter asked nastily.

"I think it's time for another armed intervention." Kira snarled, his voice quickly taking on an angry tone as he snapped his fingers, utilizing some of his more divine abilities to instantly cover his nude form with a plain t-shirt and a pair of boxers, over which his flight suit appeared a fraction of a second later.

"Kisaka doesn't look so good." Dearka observed. "He looks like he's about to have a stroke or something."

"Kisaka's not the only one...I can think of at least two other people who feel that way right now." Kira snarled.

"Who?" Dearka asked.

"Me...and Cagalli." Kira replied, falling to his knees. Dearka rushed over.

"You're not really having a stroke are you?" He asked in concern. Kira shook his head numbly. Kisaka's face was a mask of rage. However, Kira knew that Kisaka wasn't mad at him and Cagalli. They had, of course, informed him of the marriage years ago and he likely knew what they were up to in their apartment, but he had done nothing more than wish them well and say he would handle things on the political end once it became necessary.

"The worst part about all this is...that neither of these accusations are lies at the most basic level." Kira growled, clearly struggling to keep his rage in check. "They may have some twisted information in them, and have been presented in a harmful manner...but that really was me and Cagalli on that Twister mat. That was last night. And she really isn't Lord Uzumi Nara Attha's actual daughter. But...why? Why is someone out to get us?" Kira continued, the anger in his voice steadily rising.

"I don't think it's personal. Or not fully anyway. I think this is an attack on the peace talks." Dearka said.

"Who would want to shut down the peace talks?" Kira growled and then chorused the answer with Dearka a second later. "Blue Cosmos." They both said.

"Regent Kisaka! What is Orb's position on cross genotype marriage? Are Coordinator-Natural pairings common in Orb now?" One reporter asked. Another reporter snorted, only to get crushed two seconds later, as the Providence Gundam suddenly landed on and crushed him with its left foot. Strangly, no one seemed to notice the grey mobile suit, even as the machine ignited its thrusters and moved to hover over the huge mob of reporters, the pilot of the grey mobile suit was clearly ready to strike down anyone who asked the wrong question or even sneezed the wrong way. "Hell, is it even LEGAL?" He asked. "Regent Kisaka, please comment on why your country was giving preferential treatment to the PLANTs? Was it because your ruler was having sex with a Coordinator all this time?"

"I made a few upgrades after our last armed intervention. You should close your eyes, Yumi." Kira said, following his own advice, even as the custom two-seat CFA-44 Nosferatu superfighter, its MCPS armor having been programmed to match the paint scheme of Divinity Gundam, dropped a single missile from the centerline weapons bay on its underbelly, even as the aircraft streaked through the skies above Iran. As the missile rapidly streaked towards the pair of FB-44 Lion fighter/bombers that were pursuing the angel-winged superfighter, Yumi did as suggested, missing the searing flash that lit up the entire sky like a road flare.

"Paint missiles?" Yumi asked after a five count as she opened her eyes and saw the weapon which her lover currently had selected.

"Yes. Missiles filled with blue paint. They have guidance and radar systems equivalent to the ones used by the Excalibur, and they also have range to match. When one of those missiles locks onto a vehicle with any sort of electronic counter measures, it gives off roughly the same level of warning as being locked onto by one of the Excalibur's main guns does, but avoiding them is pretty much impossible." Kira replied proudly. "They make good joke weapons."

"You're thinking of using the blue missiles, aren't you?" Yumi smiled.

"Damn right." Kira said wickedly. "Target each of the four remaining enemy fighters with a blue missile. This'll put the fear of god into them." Yumi grinned and did as directed.

"All right...I'm going to punch the afterburner on the count of 3, on 1, you fire the missiles. Got it?"

"Yes. 3...2...1…" Yumi fired the missiles, while Kira hit the afterburner an instant later, tripling the jet's speed and leaving the enemy far behind, rubbing bright spots out of their eyes and panicking as they flew in every direction, trying to break the target lock of what appeared to be the Excalibur, which now had them in its sights.

A few days later, nearly sixty thousand light-years away, the Federation Starship Voyager sped through space on its journey back to Earth after being stranded in the Delta Quadrant. However, the crew of Voyager was completely unaware that their destination had been fractured between dozens of different realities and timelines.

Suddenly, Voyager shuddered slightly as it dropped out of warp, stopping beside another starship, one that was glowing with power as it hung silently in space. The ship was sleek and bullet-shaped, roughly half the size of Voyager itself, and looked as though it had been built for speed, with a spear-shaped saucer section and four warp nacelles, which had actually been built into each the side of the rear hull.

"Identify." Kathryn Janeway, the ship's Captain, ordered.

"Captain..." Lieutenant Commander Tuvok, the chief security officer, replied. "Unless I'm mistaken the warp signature is Starfleet."

Everyone was watching the viewscreen, which displayed the Starfleet vessel. The crew was transfixed by the sight, but Janeway stayed calm, cautious, taking the situation one step at a time.

"I'll be damned." Lieutenant Junior Grade Tom Paris spoke up from the helm. "They came through."

"Tuvok." Janeway ordered after a short second of awed silence. "Hail them."

"Hailing them." Tuvok replied. "No response."

"Lifesigns?" The Commander, known as Chakotay, asked.

Seven of Nine, a former Borg drone whom had been libereated, answered. "There's no organic matter of any kind."

"No sign of damage to the outer hull." Ensign Harry Kim anxiously spoke up. "Primary systems are on-line...including life support." He paused. "Something must've happened to the crew."

The bridge of the Deliverance was deep, cylindrical, and curvilinear. There were no crewmembers present and the room was in pristine condition, filled with gleaming, sexy, cutting-edge Starfleet technology. Chakotay, Tuvok and Paris suddenly materialized as a trio of blue-white transporter beams appeared in the center of the room. After they had fully materialized, the three glanced around, clearly impressed.

"Wow." Tom said.

"Wow indeed." Tuvok replied.

Chakotay walked over to a console and began to work with it. After a few seconds, the console lit up with a schematic of the ship. "I've never seen this kind of hull geometry." He said, studying the schematic. "It looks like they've taken a whole new approach to starship design."

"USS Deliverance, registry number NX-10A." Tuvok awnsered from another console. "Launched on stardate 51472."

"Sixty thousand light years in three months?" Chakoty asked.

"I'm trying to access the crew logs." Tuvok said. "But there are none."

"I don't think there was a crew." Tom answered, studying another station. "The helm was set for auto-navigation to these coordinates."

"Logic would suggest that Starfleet has provided us with a new ship." Tuvok said.

"Let's not pack our bags just yet." Chakotay said. "I'd like to know how they-" He was suddenly interrupted as the ship trembled slightly.

"I'm reading power fluctuations in the warp core." Tom said, quickly checking his console again. "If you can call it a warp core. I don't recognize this engine configuration."

"Let's go take a look." Chakotay said, and as the ship shuddered again he headed for the door, but just before he reached the door he stopped. "It might help to know where we're going."

"Engineering." Tuvok answered before leaving the console that he stood at. "Deck 6, Section 24." With that, the three headed towards the door and left the bridge.

A few moments later, the three Starfleet officers walked into a dimly lit chamber, with an engine dome in the center of the floor. The dome was roughly four feet high, glowing with a deep rainbow of constantly shifting colors. A circular console surrounded it. At the moment, the actual engine core wasn't completely visible, as it was down below. A steady rumbling quietly echoed within the room.

"I think we've found our engine core." Tom said, moving to the dome and peering down through the clear surface, with Tuvok and Chakotay joining him after a few seconds.

The core itself was a glowing mass of energy; huge, exotic and powerful. The three men carefully eyed the core, the light playing across their faces. "Some kind of new warp drive?" Chalotay asked after a short silence.

"It's not antimatter. I don't know what it is." Tom said, moving to a nearby console, looking for answers. Suddenly, the ship trembled, the room rumbling loudly as the light from the engine dome briefly flared. "They call this thing a Quantum Slipstream GN Drive."

"I've never seen that in the engineering manuals." Chakotay said, as the rumble steadily grew in intensity, the room itself vibrating.

"The ship is powering up!" Tom warned, checking a readout as various alarms began to sound. "Auto-navigation's kicking in!"

Within the void of space, the Deliverance began to to move forward, pulling away from Voyager, slowly at first, but rapidly gaining speed. On Voyager's bridge, Ensign Harry Kim was currently in command, quickly checking the armchair console. "Voyager to Away Team." He spoke into the communications line. "What's happening over there?" There was no response. "Bridge to Janeway; the vessel's moving away at high impulse! I can't raise the Away Team."

"Pursuit course, Ensign!" Janeway instantly ordered.

The Deliverance was violently rumbling now, the engine core glowing wildly.

"I can't shut down the drive!" Tom urgently reported.

"Computer, disable propulsion!" Chakotay ordered.

The computer's response came an instant later. "Unable to comply."

"Hang on!" Tom yelled, as the three braced themselves against anything they could. Within the blackness of space, the Deliverance roared along at high impulse, leaving a trail of glowing green particles in its wake. The nose of the ship began to glow and distort, and with a flash of pure white light, the Deliverance suddenly vanished from view, leaving a single, brightly glowing, redshifted afterimage at the point of its departure.

"Bridge to Janeway." Harry said, his shock evident. "They're gone."

Meanwhile, the Deliverance, its entire hull glowing with a crimson light, raced through the quantum slipstream; a torrent of glowing green energy whipping past the ship at blinding velocities as the warp engines and main deflector strobed with an intense red-green light.

"Look at this!" Tom yelled over the noise, gesturing towards his console. "Energy from the quantum drive is being routed through the engines and the main deflector!"

"Is that what's creating the slipstream?" Chakotay asked.

"It looks that way!" Tom answered.

"Fascinating!" Tuvok replied. "Can you make it stop?"

"I'll try accessing the helm controls!" Tom answered, quickly working at the console. A blast of green energy suddenly erupted from the blackness as the Deliverance roared out of the slipstream and back into normal space, the crimson glow slowly fading from the hull.

"We're back in normal space." Tom sighed, as the alarms stopped and the light from the core died down.

"Scan for Voyager." Chakotay ordered.

"No sign of them." Tuvok answered, pausing for a moment before then adding. "Commander, we've traveled over fifty light years." With that, the three headed back towards the bridge.

"What's that?" Tom asked, as he stepped onto the Deliverance's bridge, only to see the image of a huge dagger-shaped ship on the main screen, the hull of the massive vessel colored in white, red and blue. The three quickly moved to the consoles which they had been at before their unexpected ride.

"Scanning." Tuvok replied from his console, his face showing surprise for an instant as the computer matched the huge vessel to one in the Deliverance's ship library. "Vessel identified as LHM-10XA Excalibur. Prototype warship of the Excalibur-class."

"Is it another Starfleet ship?" Chakotay asked in awe.

"Negitive." Tuvok answered, glancing at huge ship as it floated motionless in the void, just off the Deliverance's starboard bow. "According to the computer, that ship is operated by a private armed organization called Celestial Being."

"Attention, Deliverance." A voice suddenly spoke from the speakers, even as the image of a young man, whom was probably no more than 25 years of age, with short brown hair and bright amethyst eyes, replaced the picture of the huge dagger-shaped ship. "This is Captain Kira Yamato, of the Celestial Being Warship Excalibur."

The three men on the bridge of the Deliverance glanced between each other, unsure what to think, but finally Chakotay spoke. "I am Commander Chakotay of the Federation Starship Voyager." He said, before gesturing towards Tom and Tuvok. "And these are Lieutenant Tom Paris and Lieutenant Commander Tuvok."

"Okay kids, time for a crash course in Delta Quadrant stellar geography and inhabited localities." Kira Yamato said, looking far more jovial than he had any right to be, as he sat at the head of the massive table, with the Excalibur's crew gathered around him, or in the various other meeting rooms, while the crew of Voyager watched and listened through a two-way communications channel. A map of the Delta Quadrant was spread out on the large monitor directly behind the amethyst-eyed man.

"Planet Vegeta is about two dozen light years from us, we'll have to pass by it on the way to our stronghold on Planet Eden." Kira explained. "They have a huge base that could even cause some trouble for the Excalibur, but we can probably slip by unnoticed, since they don't check all the ships and we can bribe the shit out of them. Then, after about another dozen light years, we'll have to pass by Planet Alderaan, where we can do the same thing." He tapped a finger on Planet Coruscant, nearly fifty light years away from the Excalibur's present position, and another fifty light years from Planet Eden. "Now, that we can't bribe our way past." He looked up grimly at the people surrounding him. "So, we'll have to fight our way through." He glanced around the table. "But I know none of you are lightweights. You can handle this."

One of the Voyager crewmen grinned back confidently. "They're not gonna know what hit them." He chuckled.

"No they won't." Kira agreed. "We've got a lot of work to do. We set out at 1300 hours tomorrow." He clapped his hands and stood up. "Hop to it, boys and girls."

The dock rumbled and Rau Le Creuset grinned as the ZGMF-X42E Eclipse Gundam, which was accompinied by the ZGMF-X42T Twilight Gundam, stomped by, both machines heading towards the launch bay. At his side, Jamie Asuka-Hawke, the eldest daughter of Shinn Asuka and Lunamaria Hawke, blinked in surprise at the sweeping, curving white and silver armor of a mobile suit.

"Is that a CGUE?" She asked. "What'd they do to it?"

"The ZGMF-515AS CGUE Assault." Rau corrected. "Fitted with an Assault Shroud armor system, highly similar to the one equipped to the GAT-X102 Duel Gundam during the First Bloody Valentine War, providing improved endurance, more weapons and more powerful thrusters." He gestured at the graceful armor as the workers began slowly edging the mobile suit into its desiginated cubicle. "It will be my machine for combat in the Delta Quadrant. A bit of a downgrade from the Providence, but I will make do."

Jamie stared at the CGUE for a moment. "And when will I get my own mobile suit?" She sighed. "Both of my parents pilot Gundams, as do Akira, Allister and Aoi "

"Right now." The voice of Kira Yamato spoke up, causing Jamie to whirl around and to come face-to-face with what appeared to be the ZGMF-X42E Eclipse Gundam at first glance. Unlike the Eclipse Gundam upon which it had been based, however, this machine possesed samurai-style armor on its arms, legs and shoulders, the machine also sported a pair of anti-ship swords stored within the left wing, a pair of high-energy, long-range beam cannons in the left wing, a pair of high-energy beam rifles on its upper legs, a pair of katanas in sheaths on its hips, and was colored in a shimmering silver, with crimson accents and blood red eyes. "From this moment on, this will be your personal machine; the ZGNF-X01A Lancer Gundam."

"Wow." Jamie spoke, her voice barely above a whisper, as she gazed up at her machine; the ZGNF-X01A Lancer Gundam.


	146. Scarred Realities

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 146**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

Meanwhile, back on Earth, all hell was slowly yet steadily beginning to break loose. With the sudden dissappearence of Celestial Being, the fragile, planet-wide cease-fire which had been negotiated between the various timelines and realities quickly crumbled.

"Audio communications severed!" A voice announced throughout the Nerv Command Center, amid dozens of alarms and flashing lights. "The Goura ground circuit is inoperative!"

"Switch the left side over to blue emergency communications line!" Fuyutsuki yelled into the phone. "Use the satellites if you have to! What's the situation on the right?"

"Negative!" The person on the other end replied. "All outgoing network and data lines are being cut off!"

"Are they after the MAGI?" Fuyutsuki wondered aloud.

"Data entry from all external nodes." Aoba reported, verifying Fuyutsuki's suspicions. "They're trying to hack into the MAGI system!"

"Just as I thought." Fuyutsuki sighed. "Is it coming from MAGI-2 in Matsushiro?"

"No, there are at least 5 MAGI systems working together." Aoba replied. "Hacking verified from Antartica, Germany, China, the United States, and the Lunar Base"

"SEELE is mustering all of their forces." Fuyutsuki realized. "5 to 1 odds...that's not good."

"Number 4 firewall breached!" Aoba reported a moment later.

"Locking the main database." Hyuga responded instantly. "Negative! We can't stop their invasion!"

"It's entering a deeper level!" Maya reported. "Even the back-up circuit can't stop it!"

_'This is bad...'_ Fuyutsuki thought. _'Capture the MAGI, and you capture everything.'_

"Radar sites 8 to 17 have gone dead!" Aoba yelled. "JSSDF battalion advancing through the Goura defense perimeter!"

"Two more battalions approaching from Gotemba!" Hyuga added.

"Three air squadrons confirmed approaching from Mishima." Maya reported an instant later.

"It seems that man's ultimate enemy is also man." Fuyutsuki mused.

"General quarters." Gendo Ikari announced. "Go to First Level Battle Stations."

"Battle Stations! Maya asked, clearly shocked, before whispering. "But this enemy isn't an Angel. They're human beings like us."

"I wish those bastards felt the same way." Hyuga whispered.

"The Daigatake tunnel has been cut off!" Aoba announced. "Fire reported at West Number 5 freight entrance!"

"Invading forces have entered Level 1!" Maya yelled.

"South hub station off-line!" Hyuga added.

"The forces attacking the west side are just a decoy!" Misato Katsuragi announed as she strode into the command center. "If their real target is the Evas, they'll be going after the pilots first! Have Shinji stand by in Eva Unit 01F!"

"Affirmative!" Hyuga replied.

"Where's Asuka?" Misato asked.

"In sickroom 303." Aoba answered.

"Put her into Eva Unit 02 anyway." Misato ordered.

"Asuka's barely conscious, she'll never be able to synchronize." Maya retorted.

"If they find her, they will kill her." Misato replied. "If we put her in Unit 02, at least she'll be safe."

At the same time, across the Pacific Ocean, the United States had been buried in ice. Five years earlier, the government of the United States had cut the use of fossil fuels and spent trillions of dollars developing alternative energy sources, in addition they had made it illegal to own pickup trucks or sport utility vehicles, with the only exceptions being law enforcement, emergency services and the military. Some of the more aggressive nations also joined in the effort, making oil and coal too expensive to use, which hurt the economy but reduced pollution tremendously, since energy prices were too high.

The climate change occured almost overnight. After spending trillions to eliminate the threat of global warming, which proved to be the result of higher energy output by the sun, the nations couldn't afford to fight the ice age that descended upon the world like a blanket. Millions died in the first year, and even those that lived at the equator suffered from the relentlessly approaching cold.

In Washington DC, the government was disbanded because survival became a higher priority than making laws. The ice age deniers were ridiculed just like the global warming deniers were ridiculed generations before. The glaciers that had been retreating galloped forward. For the first year months, the environmentalists rejoiced, but after the first year, when villages, towns, and even cities, began to be crushed by the mountains of ice, people turned against the environmentalists and pleaded with their leaders to stop the destruction, but it would have required nuclear weapons to melt the glaciers and the people wisely chose not to revert to them.

Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Minneapolis, and most other cites and towns north of the Mason/Dixon Line were gone within the first three years. The only thing that had saved New York, Philadelphia, and Balitmore was a tall, cement wall that used beam shields to keep the ice from leveling those cities and a massive geothermal power plant to provide the energy. The wall was nearly as massive as the Great Wall of China, but 20 times more expensive.

Washington could have been protected by the wall, but the last thing Congress did before it disbanded was to declare the nation bankrupt and run like rats to warmer climates, and as a result, there was no money to extend the wall. Once the wall reached Annapolis and Baltimore, it was closed up and everything outside the perimeter was left at the mercy of the ice.

Even as the Earth was thrown into complete chaos, the crews of the warship Excalibur and the starship Voyager were enjoying reletive peace. At the moment, Kira Yamato stood in the Excalibur's massive mobile suit hanger, looking up at the silver form of the GSX-401FW Stargazer Gundam. "I want this mobile suit refit. For combat."

The chief blinked. "For combat, sir?"

"As soon as you can. I'll instruct the technical division to draw up blueprints." He turned towards Misato, the lone person among the knot of officers and mechanics, in her custom red Celestial Beiing uniform, which had been based on her old Nerv uniform. "And Misato, we're going to have to select a pilot. We have some research to do."

"So, the passage at Planet Vegeta will be difficult. The plotted course forces us to pass close to the planet." Rau Le Creuset said as he stood on the Excalibur's bridge, peering up at a map.

Lexi, whom currently sat at the helm, glanced over anxiously at Rau. At the other end of the bridge, Lunamaria Hawke glanced up at the map herself and shrugged.

"It's nothing we haven't done before." She replied. "The station near that planet is usually pretty lax anyway, at least from what we our database suggests." She glanced up ahead, then over at her younger sister, Meyrin, whom was sitting at the communications station. "Meyrin, signal the fleet. The Excalibur is clear. Return to flank speed."

The warship rumbled as its engines came back to life. Rau paused and studied the face of the woman that ZAFT had learned to fear as the Crimson Blade, the undefeated ace pilot of the ZGMF-X42T Twilight Gundam, the one that dozens of ZAFT pilots had sought, only to be destroyed when they eventually found her.

"I must say, I'm surprised that you've got such an organized operation here. I had heard you were reduced to hiding out near the Mendel Colony." He spoke up after a moment of silence.

Luna glanced over skeptically at the masked man. "No more inglorious than what you've been up to, I'm sure."

"But you gave up a lot when you defected from ZAFT." Rau continued. "A commissioned officer, an ace pilot with a clear path to promotion and prosperity." He shrugged. "Not many people in this world are very willing to forgo those pleasures for principles." He finished, waving a hand at the inky blackness, at the massive fleet consisting of millions of mobile suits and hundreds of ships escorting the Excalibur, the world around them.

"Are you saying I made a mistake by joining Celestial Being and wanting to help eliminate all conflict?"

"Not at all. I'm simply remarking on your unusual career choice."

Luna merely scoffed as she stared into the blackness. "What was I supposed to do?" She turned her eyes back towards Rau. "Anyway, it should be pretty obvious why I'm here. But you, Rau Le Creuset of ZAFT, that's more interesting to me."

Rau smirked back. "I'm afraid my tale is a bit less prosaic than yours. I was simply left behind, and in my time in ZAFT, I developed a few enemies within ZAFT, enemies, which, as luck would have it, have survived and took over the leadership. So, here I am."

"And you said I gave up a lot?" Luna chuckled.

"Oh no, Ms. Hawke." Rau said with a laugh of his own. "It all depends on how you look at it."

The Eclipse Gundam's mighty anti-ship sword fell into place with a crash that echoed through the Excalibur's massive mobile suit hangar, and at the controls to the crane, Shinn Asuka glanced tiredly up at his trusty steed's darkened green eyes. The ZGMF-X42E Eclipse could still fight, but it had been completely outclassed during the last training simulation, by none other than Kira Yamato and the CB-X60D Divinity Gundam. The age of his Eclipse Gundam was finally starting to show.

That was a distressing thought, as he looked around the hangar, at all the berths, or at least the ones which he could see from his vantage point. The hanger was packed with mobile suits. In the cubicles on either side of his Eclipse Gundam, the Abyss, the Chaos, the Providence, the Legend, and the Savior, all silently stood.

"Things will be hectic." One of Lexi Yamato's holograms said grimly on the screen as Shinn Asuka closed the seals of his helmet in the Eclipse's cockpit. "Military units hidden throughout the city are starting to get active. That may make your job easier or harder, depending on what they do."

"What everyone always does, I guess." Shinn grunted. "Shoot at us."

"Well, you can do something about that." Lexi replied. "Destroy the bases and whatever military units you encounter. Do not target the cities or the civilians. Be the bigger man, Shinn."

Shinn arched an eyebrow. "That's in direct violation of our orders, ma'am."

"I don't care."

"Hope Yamato will."

"She is not in command." Lexi fixed Shinn with a stony look. "We're not going to be barbarians, commander. I will hold my fire on the city and restrict it to the base. I expect you to do the same, on your honor as a soldier of Celestial Being."

Shinn smiled back and saluted. "Nothing's more sacred, ma'am. Shinn Asuka, Eclipse Gundam, heading out!" A fraction of a second later, the Eclipse Gundam was hurled out of the Excalibur's hanger. Due to the fact that the massive warship was cloaked beneath its Mirage Colloid stealth system, the Eclipse Gundam appeared to materialize from the blackness of space itself.

As the Eclipse Gundam was catapulted out of the hanger, Lexi sighed. The holographic beauty knew that she would most likely be punished for disobeying orders, but she also knew that part of her job was to minimize casualties on both sides in any way possible.

The hangar doors swung open and the cockpit screens of the Destiny Impulse came to life, the magenta MCPS armor following suit. Closing the visor of her flight suit's helmet, Mayu Asuka sat back and savored the hum of the Destiny Impulse's engines. She stepped forward with a crash. "Mayu Asuka, Destiny Impulse, launching!"

The Destiny Impulse lunged out of the Excalibur's hangar, and the beam wings came to life with a flash.

"Here we go." Meyrin Hawke sighed from the Minerva's bridge as she glanced up at the tactical map. "Kira jumped the gun."

"I don't blame him." Talia said. "Not with all this firepower bearing down on us." She glanced over at one of Lexi's holograms. "Lexi, keep me posted on enemy numbers. If they fall far enough, we will intervene and open up a path for our mobile suits ourselves, charge all weapons, except the Tannhäuser."

She looked back at the map. Sayian and Celestial Being units were duking it out in the eastern outskirts of the planet's captial city, known as Belém. Meanwhile, much to everyone's confusion, Alliance and ZAFT troops were in battle on the city's northern edges. Both fronts were slowly grinding backward into the city center. Belém would be destroyed.

Unless, of course, Kira had anything to say about it.

"Say that again, Mr. Yamato." Kathryn Janeway ordered, arms crossed, with an impassive Chakotay at her side.

"We've caught sight of what appears to be a ZAFT fleet coming up from the surface." He answered, even as a glowing green GN field surrounded the Divinity Gundam, the shimmering energy barrier harmlessly deflecting the incoming energy blasts while vaporizing the projectile weapons. "Projections of their course have them coming straight at Voyager. We've also detected movement at the base on the southern-most continent, they must be on to us..." He cut himself off and shook his head. "I don't know if we can do this."

"We've been through worse odds than this." Janeway scoffed. "We'll find a way to win." She paused for a moment, before firmly adding. "We'll win this battle without having to be rescued by the Excalibur."

"But four warships and at least two dozen mobile suits!" Kira sputtered. "No offence, but a single Starfleet vessel isn't going to make that much difference!"

"Voyager is no ordinary starship." Chakotay interjected. "We'll do our job, of that you can be certain." With that, the communications line closed and Voyager dove into the atmosphere of the planet known as Coruscant, the ship spewing orange phaser blasts and neon green beam blasts at any enemies that dared to approach.


	147. Marital Fraud

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 147**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

A dozen ships drifted slowly in space near a molten ball of rock, which had formerly been the planet Eden, home of Celestial Being's stronghold in the Delta Quadrant. The largest vessel by far was the dagger-shaped warship, Excalibur, belonging to Celestial Being. The eleven smaller ships silently trailing the Excalibur were all under Celestial Being's direct command. Among the ships trailing the Excalibur were the Eternal-class cruisers Eternal and Purity, the Sovereign-class battleships Ibuki and Ikari, the Minerva-class battleships Minerva and Katsuragi, the Nazca-class destroyers Voltaire and Rousseau, the Laurasia-class frigates Ganow and Amzen, and finally, the Intrepid-class starship Voyager.

"Attention, all ships." Kira Yamato's voice spoke throughout all twelve vessels. "Since our stronghold has been destroyed, we have no choice but to continue on towards the Alpha Quadrant." He paused for a moment to stamp down his slowly rising anger. "All ships are hereby ordered to dock in the Excalibur's hanger bay." The amethsyt-eyed man let out a sigh as he continued. "Your crews are free to use any of the Excalibur's facilities if they wish to do so." With that, Kira closed the communications line, watching as the eleven ships quickly moved to dock in the hanger bay.

"He's a computer genius, a brilliant pilot, and a great visionary." Athrun Zala sighed, as he sat with Meyrin Hawke in one of the Exclibur's massive mess halls. "But when it comes to girls, Kira Yamato is, plain and simple, a complete retard. The only way Murrue can possibly get what she wants is to pick up the discarded pants in the relationship, put them on and woman up!"

"Didn't you say that you walked in on him once, and found him sleeping with multiple women?" Meyrin asked after a few seconds of silence.

"Yeah." Athrun nodded. "I guess Murrue had to recruit a few other girls, but even then he seems reletively clueless."

"I don't appricate the two of you discussing my love life." Kira's voice suddenly spoke up, as the man in question strode into the mess hall. "And I really don't apprcate the two of you discussing my sex life." With that, Kira grabbed a bottle of water and walked out of the mess hall, leaving Athrun and Meyrin in stunned silence.

According to her husband; Athrun Zala, Meyrin Hawke had always enjoyed writing love stories, specifically stories which told a tale about the special love between a man and a woman. She was a busy woman who wrote romantic novels on the side.

A born writer, Meyrin felt that her social skills with the outside world were not always completely intact. Her main focus, at least when not on duty, was her literature. She was shy and timid, socially awkward. Her dating years were far behind her, she had nearly forgotten about men altogether in order to focus on her military career.

Back in his quarters, Kira Yamato sat at his computer and quickly hacked into Meyrin's compter. He browsed through the vast list of stories to choose from. After a long moment, he opened a random story and took a sip from the bottle of water he got while in the mess hall, ready for a deeper look into the mind of Meyrin Hawke.

Meyrin Hawke squirmed nervously as the elevator quickly descended deep into the Excalibur's bowels. Meyrin didn't know it yet, but she was in for a real treat. "Shiho, where the hell are we?" The red-haired woman asked as the elevtor doors silently slid open, revealing the narrow corridor, lined with steadily glowing red lights, which led to the entrance for the Inner Sanctum.

"The Inner Sanctum." Shiho replied with a grin.

"WHAT?" Meyrin shrieked. "This place actually exists?"

"It most certianly does." Shiho smiled. "Very few people have access to this section of the ship, and I am one of those lucky few."

"Shiho, I swear sometimes I could kill you." Meyrin growled.

"Hey! I'm doing you a favor here." Shiho said, as she took the violet-eyed woman's hand and led her to the massive door guarding the entrance to the Inner Sanctum. "I will be showing you both the male and female anatomy in all their glory, not to mention the true depths of human perversion. I think I deserve a thank you."

"Yes, thank you very much for bringing me to a restricted part of the ship, filled with perverted weirdos." Meyrin sarcastically replied.

"What makes you think you're not a pervert?" Shiho grinned, even as she placed the open palm of her right hand on the handprint scanner. "I mean, you write those stories while you're not on duty, and they're all about sex. You have a dirty little mind."

"My stories are about love!" Meyrin protested.

"They're about sex, Meyrin." Shiho grinned, even as she once again took Meyrin's hand and led her into the small undressing room. "Admit it."

"No they're not!" Meyrin wailed.

"Meyrin, romance novels are porn for women." Shiho smiled. "If you didn't know that, then you really are clueless."

"Quit calling me clueless!" Meyrin shrieked.

"I would stop calling you clueless if you weren't." Shiho smiled. "But sadly, you are clueless."

Meyrin crossed her arms and pouted as Shiho quickly entered the override code into the keypad, causing the large doors leading into the Inner Sanctum to slowly open.

"What the heck?" Meyrin asked, her voice filled with awe as the doors opened to reveal the first level of the Inner Sanctum. This first floor was the only level which had been designed for more than the simple fulfillment of the various fantasies and fetishes which Kira Yamato and his numerous lovers shared.

"Come on in." Shiho smiled, even as she removed her shoes and socks before then stepping onto the soft, green carpet.

"I don't know." Meyrin hesitantly responded. "What if someone discovers that you had me down here?"

"I'm pretty sure that Kira already knows you're here." Shiho replied. "And even if Kira isn't aware, Lexi is."

"You mean that Lexi has access to this place too?" Meyrin asked in disbelief.

"Of course." Shiho nodded. "Lexi controls almost everything in the Inner Sanctum, so it's only natural that she has unrestricted access."

"Wait, what exactly do you mean by that?" Meyrin asked, allowing her curosity to get the better of her.

"I'll show you." Shiho grinned, once again taking Meyrin's hand, leading her across the room and into a second elevator, one with an incredibly soft, pure white carpet and mirrors for walls. The amethyst-eyed woman smiled as she pressed a glowing button on the control panel, and then the elevator began to steadily descend.

As the elevator began its descent, Meyrin couldn't help but notice the symbols which were located on the control panel. The symbol next to the lowest botton, which Meyrin instantly realized sent the elevator to the lowest floor, resembeled a paddle, the symbol glowing with an ominous red light. The symbol above the paddle appeared to be a comb, and even though it was glowing with a white light, it only served to confuse Meyrin to no end. The next highest symbol on the control panel was that of a simple bed, glowing with a yellow light. The fourth highest symbol was what appeared to be waves, glowing with a blue light. The final symbol was a simple star, which was illuminted with a purple light.

As the elevator came to a stop and the doors opened, Shiho grabbed Meyrin's hand and the two women quickly proceeded down a corridor lined with alternating green and yellow lights. As they made their way towards the end of the corridor, Meyrin couldn't help but notice that the lights were steadily pulsing, first the green lights lit up, only to dim a few seconds later and be replaced by the yellow lights.

Walking through the automatic door, Meyrin quickly found herself in what appeared to be a massive, and extremely well-equipped hair salon. She looked at Shiho in confusion, only to find that the other woman's brunette tresses now cascaded down to her ankles.

"Wow." Meyrin gasped, looking around the huge salon.

"Some may see it as being self-absorbed, but Asuka, Cagalli, Hope, Lacus, Mayu, Misato, Murrue and I are very protective of our hair." Shiho said, even as she took Meyrin's hand into her own and led her over to the salon chairs.

"Well, I don't see anything wrong with being over-protective of a symbol of beauty, especially a symbol of beauty such as your hair." Meyrin replied. "Unlike my sister, I believe that the length of a woman's hair is a direct indicator of that woman's beauty, fertility and, most importantly, her self-confidence."

"Maybe I was wrong about you, Meyrin." Shiho smiled as she gently pushed the younger woman down into the chair. "Maybe you aren't clueless."

"Stop calling me clueless, Shiho!" Meyrin yelled, only to squeak in surprise a few seconds later as thick metal restraints snapped shut around her wrists and ankles. "Wha-what's going on?"

"She's all yours, Kira." Shiho said, completely ignoring Meyrin's question.

"W-wha-what the hell?" Meyrin asked, as she looked into the mirror and saw that she had somehow been completely stripped of her clothing.

"Hello, Meyrin." Kira smiled as he looked into the mirror, and by extention, into Meyrin's violet eyes.

"K-Kira, wha-what's going on?" Meyrin asked, even as a deep blush stained her cheeks.

"Just sit back and enjoy yourself, Meyrin." Kira answered. "You're about to experience a world of unimaginable pleausure, a world which most women would kill to be part of for even five seconds." With that, the amethyst-eyed man tapped a small button, which was located on the floor, directly behind the chair, with his right foot, and Meyrin let out a surprised gasp as a thick dildo suddenly impaled her womanhood, the thick rod immediately beginning to vibrate within her.

"Kira!" Meyrin protested between gasps of pleasure. "I'm married!"

_'Kira doesn't really care if you're married, Meyrin.'_ The voice of Lacus Clyne suddenly spoke within the violet-eyed woman's mind.

"What was tha-mmmppphh!" Meyrin began, only to be interrupted as Kira suddenly pushed a ball gag into her mouth, before then fastening the straps of the gag behind the headrest of the chair to which she was restrained.

"That's a good girl." Kira purred as he gently tugged on Meyrin's silken red tresses, freeing them from being trapped between her back and the chair. "I promise that before I'm done, you'll wonder how Athrun was ever able to please you."

Meyrin Hawke awoke from her deam wth a start, her entire body covered in sweat. After a moment, she realized that she was still in her quarters and glanced to her left, where her husband, Athrun Zala, was normally sleeping, only to find that he wasn't there.

"Athrun?" Meyrin called into the darkness surroundng the bed.

"I'm here." Athrun's voice quietly answered from the blackness, the tone in his voice was almost completely devoid of emotion, and it made Meyrin flinch.

"What's wrong, Athrun?" Meyrin asked, concern evident in her voice.

"What's wrong?" Athrun echoed, his voice slowly yet steadily rising in volume, even as tears slowly welled up in his eyes. "What's wrong is that I woke up, no more than five minutes ago, to hear you screaming Kira's name in your sleep!"

"Wha-what on earth are you talking about?" Meyrin replied, completely flabbergasted.

"You heard me." Athrun answered. "You were screaming Kira's name in your sleep."

"Athrun, I'm married to you, so why would you even think that I was screaming someone else's name in my sleep, much less the name of your childhood friend?" Meyrin asked, trying to defuse the situation.

Athrun hesitated for a long moment, but finally he responded, the tone in his voice one of complete seriousness. "Probably because you're cheating on me."

Meyrin audibly gasped, she had never expected Athrun to accuse her of cheating, but after a long moment of pure silence, Meyrin once again found her voice. "How dare you accuse me of cheating on you, Athrun Zala!" Meyrin shrieked, her voice so loud that she actually woke up her sister, Lunamaria Hawke, and Luna's husband, Shinn Asuka, whom were sleeping in the room next to her own, despite the two-foot thick, sound-absorbing walls. Meyrin's voice was so unexpectedly loud, that Athrun actually stumbled backwards.

"What the hell did you do to my sister, Athrun!" Lunamaria Hawke yelled as she charged into the room a moment later, followed closely by Shinn Asuka.

"I didn't do anything to her!" Athrun shot back as Luna quickly moved to hug her now openly sobbing sister.

"If you didn't do anything, why is she crying?" Luna yelled.

"Athrun." Shinn sighed, wiping the sleep from his eyes. "Luna and I both heard Meyrin through sound absorbing walls."

"So, what does that have to do with anything?" Athrun replied.

"Because it proves that you did something to her!" Luna yelled before Shinn could respond.

"She was screaming Kira's name in her sleep!" Athrun shouted, having finally lost his temper. "That alone is proof that she's cheating on me!"

"Stop accusing me of cheating on you!" Meyrin wailed.

"Even if Meyrin did scream Kira's name in her sleep, that doesn't prove that she's cheating on you!" Luna shouted back.

"What the hell is going on in here?" The voice of Talia Gladys suddenly yelled, causing Athrun, Luna, Meyrin and Shinn to look towards the doorway in unison, all four of them clearly shocked to see that a small group of five people had assembled just outside the door, with the group itself consisting of Talia Gladys, Sumeragi Lee Noriega, Miriallia Haww, Feldt Grace, and Abbey Windsor, all of them having been woken up by the arguement.

"Oh crap." Athrun muttered under his breath upon seeing that Abby Windsor was among the group.

"So, what the hell is going on in here?" Talia repeated. "Who decided that it would be a good idea to wake up half of the residents on this deck?"

"A-Athrun thinks I've been cheating on him!" Meyrin sobbed, causing Luna to gently hug her.

"Athrun." Talia sighed, turning to the emerald-eyed man. "Do you have any proof of these accusations?"

"I have no definitive proof, Ma'am." Athrun respectfully answered. "However, I was awakened by the sound of Meyrin's voice screaming out to Kira."

Without a single word, Luna let go of Meyrin, marched over to Athrun and landed a jarring punch to the right side of his face, sending him tumbling to the floor.

"Lunamaria!" Talia yelled, her blue eyes widening in shock. Talia quickly began to move towards Athrun, but before she could reach him, someone else was already at his side, one Abby Windsor.

"Stay away from him, you whore!" Meyrin suddenly shouted, having drawn a pistol from the drawer on her nightstand while everyone else had been distracted by her sister's sudden outburst.

"Drop that weapon!" Talia yelled, drawing her own pistol from the waistband of her sweatpants and aiming it at Meyrin. "I won't ask you again, Meyrin! Drop the gun!"

"I hope you both rot in hell for all eternity." Meyrin snarled before pulling the trigger two times in less than a single second; the first bullet aimed at Abby and the second aimed at Athrun. Less than half a second after Meyrin had fired her second shot, Talia discharged her own weapon.

Suddenly, time seemed to slow to a crawl. All eyes watched the three bullets as they sliced through the air itself, unerringly speeding towards their respective targets. An instant before the three projectiles hit their targets, however, three blindingly bright flashes of pure white light filled the room, immediately followed by three grunts of pain and the sound of a trio of bodies hitting the floor.

"Despite being a hologram, getting shot sucks." The voice of Lexi Yamato groaned in pain as she slowly rose to her feet.

"L-Lexi, h-how did you do that?" Miriallia asked.

"That doesn't matter right now." Lexi answered as two of her three holographic bodies vanished, leaving the bullets themselves behind. Not seeing Lexi as a threat, Abby began to draw her own pistol, intending to eliminate Meyrin Hawke, the only competition for Athrun Zala's heart. Before she could raise the weapon, however, it began to glow with a red light, burning her hand and causing her to drop the gun.

"Stop being so fucking stupid, all of you!" The voice of none other than Kira Yamato roared, as the man in question suddenly materialized in the middle of the room, wielding a shotgun in his right hand and a scaled-down beam rifle in his left. "Which one of you thought that it would be funny to wake me up at three in the morning?"

An instant later, the entire room fell into a tense silence. The silence lasted for nearly a full minute, until Asuka Langley Soryu and Misato Katsuragi, both of whom were wearing riot gear and carrying a pair of shotguns loaded with non-lethal rounds, forced their way through the small crowd and into the room.

"I'll ask once more and if I don't get an answer within ten seconds, I'll give Asuka and Misato the order to shoot now and ask questions later." Kira sighed, even as Asuka and Misato raised their weapons, with Asuka aiming her weapons at Athrun and Abby, while Misato kept one of her guns trained on Meyrin, while the other was pointed towards Luna and Shinn. "Who started this?"

Complete silence continued to fill the room for ten more seconds, but finally Kira glanced towards Asuka and Misato, silently nodding. Less than two seconds later, everyone in the room had been rendered unconscious, with the only exceptions being Asuka, Kira, Misato and Meyrin.

"Take them all to the brig for now." Kira sighed, motioning towards the now unconscious forms of Athrun Zala, Abby Windsor, Talia Gladys, Sumeragi Lee Noriega, Miriallia Haww, Feldt Grace, Shinn Asuka and Lunamaria Hawke. "I'll deal with them later."

"W-why didn't you have Asuka and Misato shoot me, Kira?" Meyrin hesitantly asked, after everyone else had left the room.

"Meyrin Hawke, I want to know why Abby Windsor has been in your quarters a dozen times in the last two weeks." Kira said, his voice showing no sign of amusement.

"What are you talking about, Kira?" Meyrin asked. "The only ones that have been in here until tonight have been Athrun and myself."

"That's not what the Excalibur's personnel records show." Kira said, moving to Meyrin's computer and quickly bringing up the list of personnel records for Meyrin's room.

"That bastard!" Meyrin yelled in outrage after looking over the records of those whom had been in her room over the past two weeks.

Unknown to anyone, Meyrin's dream had actually been controlled by Lexi, as the holographic AI had recently developed a very special computer program, one which she called; Dream Weaver, and allowed her to manupilate the dreams of anyone onboard the Excalibur.


	148. Meyrin's Initiation

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 148**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

* * *

Three weeks had passed since Meyrin Hawke had first discovered that her husband, Athrun Zala, had been cheating on her.

Meyrin had already filed for divorce, one which she knew would leave her ruined, and bankrupt. She was now, for the first time in her life, out to fend for herself in this cruel, empty world. Her now ex-husband had married Meyrin at, what most immortals would consider a very early age of about 50 years. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time; having someone care for her day in and day out. Yet with maturity and wisdom now in her reasoning, that old-fashioned notion was nothing more than a silly girl's dream.

Meyrin never really considered herself to be overly attractive, or desirable to anyone's discerning eye. She felt wanted at the onset of her doomed marriage when sex was all that she and Athrun could experience. Yet after time, that in itself seemed monotonous after a while. The typical act of intercourse was becoming an agreeable task to say the least. What was left of any desire or lust simply got washed away in the sands of time. She felt cheated in several ways considering how deeply emotional she was, even though she tried to hide it. As a young woman, Meyrin's dreams consisted of sweeping passion and desire being the only constant in her life; a lifelong impulse to reveal genuine love in every manner possible.

After her separation from Athrun, Meyrin was forced to relocate to a one-bedroom living quarter. The divorce decree left her with little to live on, and before long, she was calling her trustworthy sister, Lunamaria, for help. It broke Meyrin's heart to ask her older sister for money, yet her sympathy for the recent break-up inspired Luna to support her younger sibling until she could get back on her feet. Luckily, Meyrin had no children or large amounts of debt to contend with. She supposed in that respect, she was indeed fortunate. Luna truly made every effort to ensure Meyrin's survival; stopping by occasionally to make her dinner, clean the place up, and to take care of her only sister.

"I'm serious, Meyrin." Lunamaria Hawke sighed, as she sat next to her sister on the couch in Meyrin's living room. "You need to do more than simply change your hairstyle, you need get out and meet some guys."

"The last one cheated on me and broke my heart." Meyrin sighed, sniffling slightly. Unlike three weeks earlier, Meyrin's red tresses now rested just above her waist, and even though she had no idea why or how her hair had grown to such a length in only three weeks, she didn't really mind, as she usually allowed it to hang free, and during the few times that she would put her hair up, she would simply gather it into a tight ponytail. "And I already told you, if you can find a nice guy for me, who won't break my heart, just point him out and I'll go out with him."

"Have you still been having those weird dreams you told me about?" Luna asked after a moment of tense silence. "The ones involving Kira, I mean?"

"Y-yes." Meyrin answered, a deep blush tinting her cheeks. "Why?"

"How often do you have them?" Luna asked.

"Usually every other night." Meyrin replied.

"Tell me about them." Luna smiled, her blue eyes sparkling with interest.

"N-no!" Meyrin replied, her cheeks turning a deep scarlet, the volume of her voice rising lightly.

"Why not, Meyrin?" Luna asked, a dejected tone in her voice. "Are you afraid I'd laugh at you or something?"

"S-sort of." Meyrin answered.

"Meyrin, I'm your sister." Luna sighed, a hint of annoyance in her voice. "I can't promise that I won't find these dreams weird, but I can promise that I won't laugh at you."

"Fine." Meyrin answered with an exasperated sigh. "The dreams all start the same way; with me eating lunch or something in the mess hall." She paused for a few seconds, but finally continued. "Usually, after about five miutes, Kira will come in and approach me, although sometimes it's Murrue, and once it was Asuka."

"And?" Luna urged.

"They'll take me to a secret area of the ship." Meyrin explained, her cheeks once again flushing. "Before even being allowed to enter this part of the ship, I would have to strip naked." She paused for a few seconds, before finally continuing. "I would then be taken further into this secret section of the ship, to what could best be described as a very large, and very well-stocked hair salon."

_'And I thought Shinn was weird.'_ Luna thought, but simply nodded, silently telling her sister to continue.

"At this point, if Kira wasn't the one that brought me into this section of the ship, he would lead me over to the first salon chair and have me sit down."

"Then what happens?" Luna asked, now even more interested than before, since this is the most detailed account that Meyrin had ever given her about these dreams.

"Kira would usually remain silent as he began to brush my hair." Meyrin answered. "But, the brush was different than those you and I use."

"Different?" Luna asked, raising an eyebrow. "How?"

"Thre brush appeared to be nothing more than a normal vented, round hairbrush." Meyrin answered. "But I could feel a gentle yet incredibly powerful suction from the vents, almost as though the brush was hollow and had been attached to a vacuum cleaner or something."

"Anything else?" Luna asked, after a moment had passed in silence.

"Yes." Meyrin nodded, her cheeks once again turning a deep crimson. "But, I'd rather not talk about it."

"I already told you that I won't laugh." Luna reassuringly told her younger sister.

"After brushing my hair for a while, I would then be led into a large atrium filled with dozens of exotic plants." Meyrin finally answered, after ten full seconds had passed in silence. "The only plants that I immediately recognized were the dozen Lovelock plants that lined the back wall."

"Wait, did you say Lovelock plants?" Luna asked, her eyes widening.

Meyrin simply nodded, her face a deep crimson.

"Even though it was just a dream, was it really as good as the myths say?" Luna asked, refering to the numerous myths and legends about the Lovelock plants. "That once the Lovelock restrains you, it will please you in ways that no man could ever dream of?"

"Oh, yes." Meyrin answered, hoping that her older sister would stay true to her promise and not speak a word of this conversation to anyone. "In my dream, after the Lovelock had impaled me, I could actually feel its vines spreading through my entire reproductive system."

"Wow." Luna answered, barely able to imagine how that must have felt, despite only being a dream.

"After the vines and completely filled me, they then began to extract eggs from my ovaries." Meyrin sighed, remembering the incredibly wonderful feeling, even as she tried to put it into words. "I can only properly describe it as a gentle suction, tugging on every part of my womanhood at once."

_'Damn.'_ Luna thought. _'If those plants really do exist, maybe I should try to get one for myself.'_

Before Meyrin could continue to describe the dream for her older sister, however, she was interrupted when Lexi's holographic form suddenly appeared before them.

"Lunamaira Hawke, as of this very moment, you are ten minutes late for your bridge shift." Lexi announced. "If you head to the bridge now, I promise to make sure that no one finds out you were late."

"Y-yes, Ma'am." Luna answered, quickly heading towards the door. "Thank you for giving me a break this time."

"Don't mention it." Lexi smiled, watching as Luna hurried out of the room. After a moment of silence she turned to face Meyrin. "Now then, Meyrin Hawke, I am hereby placing you under arrest for hacking into the Kira Yamato's computer and extracting personal files from his hard drvie."

"What!" Meyrin shrieked. "I never did any such thing!"

"Then why do you have videos which were recorded within the Inner Sanctum on your computer?" Lexi asked, even as she walked over to Meyrin's computer and opened the folder in question.

Meyrin could only stare in a mix of confusion and slight desire as the projction screen flashed to life when Lexi opened the first video. The video that appeared on the wall was almost exactly like a sequence from one of Meyrin's recent dreams; with a girl being held captive and mercilessly pollinated, but instead of her being the one held captive by the huge Lovelock plant, it was Asuka.

"How did this get on my computer!" Meyrin yelled.

"Because you hacked into Kira's computer and copied them to yours!" Lexi shouted back, even as she suddenly vanished, only to reappear behind Meyrin a fraction of a second later, pulling the red-haired girl's arms behind her back and slapping a pair of handcuffs on her wrists. "Walk!" Lexi ordered, pushing Meyrin forward.

"Lexi, you do know that we just passed the brigs, right?" Meyrin asked a few minutes later, as she stood beside the holographic woman inside the steadily descending the elevator.

"Yes, I am fully aware of that, Meyrin." Lexi answered, seemingly unconcerned.

"If you're not taking me to the brig, then where are you taking me?" The purple-eyed woman nervously asked.

"The Inner Sanctum." Lexi calmly replied.

"Wait, you're telling me that place really exists?" Meyrin asked, her tone one of shock, confusion and worry.

"Yes, the Inner Sanctum really does exist." Lexi giggled as the elevator stopped and the doors opened to reveal a long hallway lit with red lights with the large vault-like door of the Inner Sanctum's entrance at the end.

Lexi couldn't help but grin as she placed the open palm of her right hand on the handprint scanner and quickly entered the override code into the keypad, causing the large doors leading into the Inner Sanctum to slowly open.

"So, this place is real?" Meyrin asked, her voice filled with awe as the doors slowly opened to reveal the first level of the Inner Sanctum, just as she remembered it from her dreams. This first floor was the only level which had been designed for more than the simple fulfillment of the various fantasies and fetishes which Kira Yamato and his numerous lovers shared. "And I'm not dreaming?"

"Of course it's real, Meyrin." Lexi smiled, moving behind Meyrin and gently pushing her forward, guiding her across the room and into a second elevator, one with an incredibly soft, pure white carpet and mirrors for walls. The holographic beauty continued to grin as she pressed a glowing button on the control panel, and then the elevator began to steadily descend. "And, no, you're not dreaming."

As the elevator began its descent, Meyrin couldn't help but notice the symbols which were located on the control panel. The symbol next to the lowest botton, which Meyrin instantly realized sent the elevator to the lowest floor, resembeled a paddle, the symbol glowing with an ominous red light. The symbol above the paddle appeared to be a comb, and even though it was glowing with a white light, it only served to confuse Meyrin to no end. The next highest symbol on the control panel was that of a simple bed, glowing with a yellow light. The fourth highest symbol was what appeared to be waves, glowing with a blue light. The final symbol was a simple star, which was illuminted with a purple light.

Finally, the elevator came to a stop and the doors opened, Lexi once again moved behind Meyrin and gently pushed her forward. The two women proceeded down a long hallway lined with alternating green and yellow lights, and as they made their way towards the end of the corridor, Meyrin couldn't help but notice that the lights were steadily pulsing, first the green lights lit up, only to dim a few seconds later and be replaced by the yellow lights.

Walking through the automatic door, Meyrin found herself in a massive, and extremely well-equipped hair salon. She looked at Lexi in confusion, as if silently asking her if this was yet another dream, only to find that the holographic beauty's brunette tresses now cascaded down to her ankles.

"I guess my dreams were right." Meyrin gasped, looking around the huge salon.

"Some may see it as being self-absorbed, but Asuka, Cagalli, Hope, Lacus, Mayu, Misato, Murrue and Shiho are very protective of their hair." Lexi said, even as she removed the handcuffs from Meyrin's wrists and then led her over to the salon chairs. "This is due in part to the fact that Kira has a fetish for long hair." The holographic beauty couldn't help but allow a smile to form on her lips as she used Kira's personal motto concerning his long hair fetish. "In fact, the longer a woman's hair is, the better it is."

"Wait a minute." Meyrin said. "What exactly does that mean?"

"What it means, Meyrin, is that Kira's long hair fetish has no limits." Lexi answered, even as the man in question strode into the room. Much to Lexi's surprise, Kira was fully dressed, wearing his normal uniform.

"Are you telling me that Kira will want me to continue letting my hair grow out?" Meyrin asked in a slightly worried tone.

"That's exactly what I want." Kira answered, even as he walked up behind Meyrin and gently tugged on her soft crimson locks, freeing them from their prison between the back of the chair and Meyrin's body.

"How long will you want me to let my hair grow out for?" Meyrin asked, even as Kira walked to the counter in front of where she sat, picked up a large paddle brush, moved back behind her, and finally began to gently brush her hair.

"I'd prefer if you let your hair grow down at least to your ankles." Kira calmly replied, gently running the brush through Meyrin's silken locks.

"I-I'm not sure that I want my hair to be that long." Meyrin responded a few seconds later, even as she got out of the chair and began to move towards the door.

_'Oh shit.'_ Lexi thought, before her holographic body quickly faded from view.

"Excuse me?" Kira asked, his voice one of complete calm, as he utilized some of his more divine powers and took control of Meyrin's body, essentially forcing her to walk back over to the salon chair and to once again sit down. "I don't recall ever giving you any choice in the matter." He continued, tapping a small button that was located on the floor, directly behind the chair, with his left foot.

"What the?" The red-haired woman squeaked in surprise as thick metal restraints instantly snapped shut around her ankles, wrists, neck and waist, and as soon as the restraints had closed around her, Meyrin found herself to be completely naked.

"As I said, I'd like it if you let your hair grow down to your ankles, at the very least." Kira smiled as he continued to lovingly brush Meyrin's soft tresses.

"K-Kira, I never even wanted to know that this place existed!" Meyrin yelled, struggling against her restraints. "And I certainly never wanted to be a part of your sick, pointless and preverted fantasies!"

Meanwhile, in the bedroom directly above the salon, Hope Yamato's eyes shot open and she quickly sat up, the action unintentionally tossing her lover, Mayu Asuka, whom had been feeding from Hope's breasts for the last hour, off the bed.

"What's wrong, Hope?" Mayu asked as she quickly got to her feet, knowing that her lover would never do anything like that unless something was seriously wrong.

"Someone just really pissed Kira off." Hope answered, even as she noticed that she could no longer see into Kira's mind, since he seemed to have raised his mental shields, which disallowed anyone from seeing his thoughts.

"Don't you know who it was that upset him?" Mayu asked, even as the two women quickly pulled on their more casual dresses.

"No, but whoever it is, they really pissed him off." Hope explained as they rushed to the waiting elevator and headed down to the salon. "Especially if he went so far as to raise his mental shields so that we can't see into his mind."

When Hope and Mayu entered the salon less than two minutes later, the sight that met their eyes was one that shocked even them. Sitting in the chair closest to the door was Meyrin Hawke, her body completely stripped of clothing and securely restrained by no less than six thick, metal shackles, with a thick, metal dildo firmly embedded within her vaginal canal. Even from the doorway of the salon, Hope and Mayu could easily hear the young woman's screams through the ball gag in her her mouth, the cries alternating between intense pain and equally intense pleasure.

"What the hell do you think you're you doing to her?" Hope yelled, quickly running at Kira and delivering an eye-watering punch to his cheek. "She's a mere mortal! Her body can't take nearly as much electricity as ours can!"

Mayu quickly took advantage of the distraction, running to Meyrin and rapidly freeing the red-haired girl from her restraints, before then teleporting both of them to the bedroom directly above the salon.

"Shit." Mayu swore as she gently laid Meyrin's still convulsing body on the bed. "He gave Meyrin a continuous, ten second shock that was strong enough to kill most people within only the first three seconds." Without any hesitation, the brown-haired woman gently yet firmly pressed her hands to Meyrin's chest, utilizing her more divine abilities to instantly heal the red-haired woman's body. Even as Mayu healed her, she also bestowed Meyrin with she same powers that she and the other girls within Kira's harem shared, she also replaced Meyrin's memory of being electrocuted with something much more desirable and much more pleasing

"What makes you think that you can come in here and steal from me?" Kira snarled as he picked Hope up by her neck and slammed her against the shower wall.

_'Because you were on the verge of killing her!'_ Hope's telepathic voice yelled. _'Meyrin is not immortal like us!'_

"I guess that you wouldn't mind taking her place then, would you?" Kira smirked, even as he disabled all of Hope's powers, with the only two exceptions being her immortality and regeneration, before finally letting her go. Hope quickly took in a few deep breaths, even as she glared heatedly at her lover. Hope didn't really know why, but for some reason, the dominant behavior which Kira was now displaying was slowly yet steadily arousing her.

Kira licked his lips in anticipation as he slowly looked Hope's body up and down. At the moment, she wore a strapless red dress that hugged her curves before flowing out into a wide red silk and white lace mix, cascading down to the floor, with a simple white floral pattern embroidered over her waist and up to her right breast.

Just as the amethyst-eyed man began to move towards Hope, a blindingly bright, pure white light surrounded her body. As the light slowly faded, Kira realized that his other seven lovers had decided to take matters into their own hands, once more merging into Yumi, while also adding Meyrin to the amalgam of merged bodies and minds, thus increasing the number of women within the merged body to a total of nine.

To Kira's slight surprise, Yumi now wore Hope's strapless red, floor-length dress, the outfit greatly helping to enhance her normal beauty, even as her silken brunette tresses, which were now highlighted with blonde, purple, pink and red streaks, elegantly trailed behind her for 50 feet.

"We're sick of you, Kira." Yumi scowled, even as she grabbed his right wrist, instantly disabling all of his powers, with the only two exceptions being his immortality and regeneration, before finally letting him go. "It's about time you learned your place."


	149. A New Goddess

**Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 149**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.

**Author's Note:** 164 decillion = 164 with 33 zeros after it, or 164,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

* * *

"W-What do you mean you're sick of me?" Kira asked, fear and saddness evident in his tone of voice. "Are you going to break up with me?"

"No, we're not breaking up with you." Yumi answered, walking up to her lover, gently taking his hand into her own and teleporting them both to the dungeon, while simultaniously switching from the Inner Sanctum onboard the Excalibur, to the one which the group had begun to refer to as the Alternate Sanctum, the one where Kira's lovers could let his long hair fetish run wild.

_'So, what should we do with him?'_ Misato's mental voice asked.

_'Why don't we restrain him to an electric chair, put an electrified dildo up his ass and turn it on at full power?'_ Meyrin growled.

_'No.'_ Murrue instantly answered. _'We all promised that we would never indulge in any form of anal sex.'_

_'We could turn him into a woman.'_ Cagalli suggested.

_'Cagalli, you're a genius!'_ Lacus squealed.

"I had originally been planning on simply restraining you and teasing you with your own fantasies and fetishes." Yumi grinned as she walked up to Kira. "But I have a much better plan now."

"W-What do you plan to do to me?" Kira asked, already knowing that he would regret it.

"You'll find out in a moment, Kira." Yumi promised as she walked up to the amethyst-eyed man and gently put her hands on his shoulders, focusing her thoughts on changing her lover's body into her own; intent on changing him into the perfect female form.

Kira's eyes widened in shock and horror as he felt his chest begin to expand, quickly growing into a pair of soft, 32-E breasts, exactly like Yumi's own. The brown-haired woman smiled in satasfaction at her work so far, before then moving her attention to the area between her lover's legs. An instant later, Kira's male genitalia seemingly retracted into his body and completely vanished, only to be replaced by female reproductive organs.

"W-What the hell did you just do to me?" Kira yelled, not really caring at this point that his voice had changed as well, becoming higher in pitch. He also didn't notice, nor did he really care that his brown hair now extended all the way down to his ankles.

"All that I'm doing is giving you a fitting punishment for what you did to Meyrin." Yumi answered, a deep blush tinting her cheeks as she quickly looked over Kira's new body a few times. "To be completely honest, you're quite beautiful as a woman."

"Shut up!" Kira yelled. "This isn't funny! Now change me back to normal!"

"No, I don't think so." Yumi giggled, even as she gently wrapped her arms around Kira's slender waist. "I want to have some fun with you before changing you back." She smiled, instantly lengthening her silken tresses so that they now extended for nearly 100 miles, before then completely restraining her lover with her soft locks. "That's better." Yumi happily purred as she quickly stripped herself of her floor-length, red silk and white lace dress.

"W-What are you going to do to me?" Kira whimpered, only for Yumi to silence him with a deep and passonate kiss.

"Everything you've done to us over the years." Yumi seductively answered, before then leading him over to a nearby bed and pushing him down onto the mattress.

"Why?" Kira whimpered as Yumi quickly stripped him of his uniform, which much to both their surprise, had actually adapted to his female form.

"Wow." Yumi gasped, ignoring her lover's question as she looked over his now naked female body. "I may just decide to keep you like this."

"No, please don't!" Kira begged.

"I wasn't being serious, silly." Yumi laughed, even as she reached into the nightstand and produced a double-ended, strap-on dildo, hiked up the front of her floor-length dress and slipped the toy onto her body, letting out a soft moan as she slipped wearer's end into her womanhood. "Now then, what should I do to you first?" She quietly sighed, even as she freed Kira's now ankle-length hair from underneath him, before then draping the soft strands over top of his body. After a moment of silent thought, Yumi gently placed her hands on Kira's breasts and began a gentle masage, eliciting soft moans from his lips.

"Yumi, please." Kira begged between quiet moans of pleasure. "Please stop."

"You keep asking me to stop." Yumi teased. "But it sounds like you're actually enjoying what I'm doing to you." Without bothering to wait for a response, Yumi quickly climbed onto the bed, straddled Kira and took her lover's right breast into her mouth, hungrily sucking on the soft mound of flesh, the powerful suction of her mouth causing a steady stream of warm milk to begin flowing from the erect nipple.

Kira moaned in pleasure as Yumi continued to attack his new breasts. She went from one to the other, pushing her face into their large softness, suckling at his nipples. Kira groaned softly as his beautiful lover continued to draw in as much of his nipple as she could, suckling hard.

Kira looked up into Yumi's beautiful face, gazing into her eyes as she finally stopped suckling nearly twenty minutes later. Yumi's hips undulated as she found her lover's tight slit. Her faux pole stuck out like a spear, long and thick as she rubbed it over her lover's entrance, making Kira groan as he insistently grabbed at her waist. Kira tried to pull Yumi down on top of him, but before he could, she had already guided her false rod to Kira's moist opening and slowly impaled her lover on the long, lengthy member.

"Oh, yes!" Kira groaned out loud, moaning and groaning as he took in more and more of his lover's faux cock. Yumi's hands shot to Kira's breasts, massaging them and playing with his nipples. They were so soft and squishy, almost as though they were filled with warm honey as her hands gently kneaded them.

Yumi arched back, her silken hair cascading down her back and onto the floor, or over her shoulders and down her front before then spilling off the side of the bed. She reached up and brushed all her hair over the front of her body so that it fell down over her beautiful lover, then she let Kira pull her down on top of him. Kira's hips began to buck up into her, slapping his lover's faux rod into his moist entrance. Kira's body slapped against Yumi's own as she began to piston into her lover.

"Oh, Kira, I love this." Yumi moaned into his ear as she moved on top of him. Kira was gently stroking up and down Yumi's back, pushing her false manhood into himself, moving her in and out of his recently acquired slit. Kira grunted and groaned, his face buried deep in Yumi's thick luxurious brown tresses.

Faster and faster, Kira moved Yumi on top of him. Their grunts and groans of pleasure began to merge into one low, keening cry of passion. Yumi arched back, her breasts and hair flailing back and forth over Kira wildly. Kira grasped her waist firmly, holding on to her for all he was worth. His teeth were gritted, locked in heat and lust as he drove his lover's spear-like shaft deep inside his hot, wet, steamy slit. The sound of slapping and moaning filled the room.

Finally, Kira bucked up against Yumi, sending her bouncing up and down even more rapidly. He groaned and arched backwards, lifting Yumi even further off the bed, and finally, they both reached their climax. The dildo that was embedded deep with Yumi instantly detected her release, converted the vaginal secretions into thick sperm and then filled Kira with his lover's creamy fluids.

"I-Is sex always that pleasing for you, Yumi?" Kira panted in exhaustion as he gently ran a hand through his lover's silken brunette mane.

"Yes, sometimes even more so." Yumi answered, not caring that during their lovemaking, her hair had released Kira from its vice-like grip.

Kira eagerly sank his face the mass of silken hair that rested on Yumi's left shoulder and deeply inhaled his lover's divine feminine fragrance. Cradling the back of his lover's head in both hands, Kira sensuously massaged her scalp, his fingers delicately wading their way through the beautiful, brunette tresses, even as he kept nibbling at her full lips.

An instant later, a small black sphere about the size of a marble suddenly appeared, silently hovering about five feet above the bed.

Kira could only stare in silent awe as Yumi's beautiful silken tresses were slowly pulled into the small black hole. After ten agonizngly long seconds, Yumi increased the black hole's gravitational force to what it would be in nature, causing it to suck in every single strand of her hair in less than a second, the soft tresses rapidly forming a thin, spiraling ribbon until making contact with the black hole and finally getting sucked into the signularity.

"Don't worry, Kira." Yumi said, reassuring at her beautiful lover. "I'm not going to do this to you." She smiled, gesturing towards the black hole floating above them.

"If you want to lengthen your hair, why not just use your powers and do so instantly?" Kira asked, a slight smile crossing his face.

"Fine then, have it your way." Yumi sighed, even as the small black hole vanished, and her beautiful locks, which now extended for nearly 5,000 miles, tumbled to the floor, but a fraction of a second later, her silken brunette tresses suddenly flashed outward, instantly extending from 5,000 miles to 164 decillion cubic light-years in length. "I fully expect you to help me with this, though." She said, climbing off of her lover's body and moving to sit on the edge of the bed.

The amethyst-eyed man could only stare in shocked silence as his lover's soft brunette tresses began to writhe and twist, the silken locks quickly taking the shape of Yumi's own body.

"W-What the hell is this?" Kira asked, gesturing towards the mass of hair which had taken the form of Yumi's own body. Despite his shock, the amethyst-eyed man didn't fail to notice that the mass of hair which formed his lover's second body was connected with her real body by the head, seperated by a mile of slaken tresses, so that the mass of hair appeared as though it had a pair of ponytails in excess of floor-length, one branching off to the right, only to connect with Yumi's real body, and the other branching off the to left, extending for further than the eye could see.

"What do you think?" Yumi asked, even as the mass of hair which had taken the form of her body gently embraced Kira's waist. Nearly ten seconds passed in silence, but then Kira let a pleased groan escape his lips, Yumi quickly turned to see that the mass of hair which had assumed the form of her own body had pinned Kira to the bed, grown a false manhood, and was now eagerly thrusting in and out of her lover's dripping slit. "I guess that means you like this idea." She giggled, before then walking over to the nightstand, picking up a large paddlebrush and beginning to lovingly brush her silken tresses.

After less then 30 seconds, Kira had rolled over so that he was now straddling the silken incarnation of his lover, eagerly impaling himself on the faux shaft. The amethyst-eyed man gasped as he suddenly felt the silken tresses within his body spread into several smaller tendrils, which then quickly traveresed through the various tubes of his now feminine body.

Yumi couldn't help but giggle slightly as part of Kira's lower abdomen begun to bulge, and a few short seconds later, her lover's eyes rolled back as he experienced the most intense orgasm of his entire life, before then losing consciousness.

"Come on, Kira, wake up." Yumi giggled, gently patting her lover's cheek.

"That was incredible." Kira breathed.

"Now you know what I feel everytime we have sex." Yumi seductively smiled. "And speaking of sex, I returned you to your normal body." Without another word, she turned her back to her handsome lover, allowing him a full view of her silken brunette tresses, which still extended for 164 decillion light-years, more than five miles of the soft strands now soaked with the result of Kira's most recent climax.

"S-Sorry about the mess." Kira blushed.

"I want you to prove to me that you're sorry." Yumi replied. "I want you to wash every inch of my hair." She smiled seductively as she continued speaking. "And before you ask, I will not shorten my hair." Kira blushed slightly as Yumi glanced over her shoulder and winked at him. "Now, get to work."

Kira nodded obediently as he got off the bed, walked over to Yumi, gently taking her hand into his own and leading her towards the huge shower. The amethyst-eyed man couldn't help but grin as he reached into the shower, tapping a button on the wall, and activating all of the showerheads simultaniously, before then stripping his beautiful lover of her dress and finally leading her into the torrent of warm water. Yumi merely smiled as she quickly moved every inch of her silken hair into the huge shower, letting a contented sigh escape her lips as the warm liquid slowly began to soak into her beautiful brunette strands.

Kira smiled as the bristles of the paddlebrush glided effortlessly through the last few inches of Yumi's silken brunette mane. _'Done.'_ He telepathically announced to his wonderful lover, as she silently sat in the salon chair, well out of eyeshot.

_'Even though I offered to shorten my hair, you wouldn't let me.'_ Yumi giggled. _'So, it's your fault that it took you in excess of 50 billion years to brush my hair.'_

"Well, I loved every second of it." Kira answered, before teleporting himself back to his lover, appearing at her side and gently running a hand through her beautiful locks.

"You're lucky that one billion years in here is only equal to one second in our native universe." Yumi sighed happily. "It's going to be weird when we go back into our native universe." She continued, a tone of slight sadness entering her voice. "I'll have to shorten my hair so that it's only waist-length."

"Why not make your hair ankle-length, instead?" Kira suggested as he continued to lovingly run his hands through Yumi's soft brunette locks. "You'd be so much sexier with ankle-length hair."

"Why not floor-length hair?" Yumi giggled as she stood up, turned to face her handsome lover and wrapped her arms around his waist. "I could even let my hair drag behind me for a short distance." She teased. "We both know that you would love it."

"Oh, I would love that." Kira blushed. "But, I also think it would be a distraction."

"How could that possibly be a distraction?" Yumi seductively purred, even as she gently embraced her lover with her silken locks.


End file.
